'Cause we all still really love each other here, right? Consistent upwellings of fellow feeling? I mean, what's a bit of outrageous sniping and wildly dishonest warfare between friends?
By July, the primary wars will be over. I trust. (Oh, shit, the Democratic National Convention isn't until August.) And an event is coming that can help make us a whole community again: the alliteratively-named Netroots Nation N2008, July 17-20 in Austin, TX!
It'll do the best job of making us a whole community if everybody here-- regardless of financial means-- who wants to attend, and can contribute valuable content, is able to do so. Please follow me over the fold for an example of how organized groups of Kossacks can help their friends, allies-- yes, even their bitterly sworn enemies-- find their way to the sort-of-expensive convention which has become the high holiday of our blogyear.
This will be the first year I make it to the convention; in part, that is because this will be the first time I can spare the cash. I understand, quite personally, that the cost of attending is prohibitive, at least challenging, for many here.
It is my distinct memory, though I can't find verification with a link, that the Daily Kos powers-that-be managed to offer at least a couple of valued site members financial assistance to attend YearlyKos 2007. (If anyone knows the details or has a link from last year, please post in the comments.) While gratitude for that is in order, and hopefully a similar effort will be made once again, we need not solely wait for either the dKos frontpagers or the Netroots Nation staff to make an offer; instead, as we so often do, we can organize on a grassroots level... to raise funds for the Kossacks we want to help, now.
That's why the particular dKos subcommunity I feel most affinity with, the Food-&-Farm group, which began to coalesce nearly two years ago around OrangeClouds115's VMD series, has decided to fundraise amongst ourselves and all food- and agriculture-interested folks on the site-- in order to offer Netroots Nation "scholarships" to some Kossacks involved in food and farm issues, but who would be otherwise unable to attend the convention.
If you like the idea of dKos subcommunities organizing amongst themselves to provide Netroots Nation financial assistance to their members, please rec up so others might catch this idea.
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This is the way our group is approaching the problem:
- First, identify the need. We’ve asked, via our Googlegroups email list, for self-nominations by those who’d like to receive a scholarship.
I’m going to open that up here. At the moment, I have 3 people on my list that would like to receive Golden Foodie scholarships. (I just thought of that name at this very moment. We don’t have to call it that.) I invite readers, right this second, or over the next few days, to nominate themselves if they meet the following qualifications:
a) They want to go to Netroots Nation ’08 and need financial assistance.
b) They are Kossacks who are active in food and farm issues, either through blogging or in real life. Vigorous and interested commenting counts as being active.
You can nominate yourself here in the comments, or email me directly at cherryriver1@gmail.com. Please let me know if you would like your self-nomination to remain private/anonymous from the rest of the group. I can do that.
It’s also helpful if you give a sense of what your needs are beyond the registration fee—e.g. will travel be expensive? Etc.
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- Second, figure out how to keep expenses manageable. We’ve negotiated a reduced rate for our scholarship registrations with the Netroots Nation folks. They are very nice. It can’t hurt to ask.
A lower registration cost helps a lot, but there are other major expenses associated with attending: travel and hotel among them. We are working on ways to reduce those expenses, e.g. hotel-room-sharing and donation of airline miles. We are hoping for members of our group to step forward in these ways to make attending Netroots Nation less expensive overall for scholarship recipients. The more affordable the overall package, the more scholarships we can offer!
If folks in the food and farm community would like to offer non-cash donations of this sort (room space, airline miles, or other things), again please post a comment or email me at cherryriver1@gmail.com.
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- Third, ask the community for help. We’ve set up a donation button on the Recipe For America website which allows people to give (and many thanks to those—marrael?-- who did the technical work). The link is here — it’s the orange button near the bottom of the page.
Please consider giving if you feel yourself a part of the community that cares about and works on food and agriculture issues; if you feel yourself on firm financial ground this year; and you want to help others get to Netroots Nation too, so they can participate to the fullest.
The link above is simply a donation page for the Recipe For America/Food & Farm group in general. If you wish your donation to go specifically for scholarships, please again post a comment to that effect or email me at cherryriver1@gmail.com. Otherwise it may also be used for general Netroots Nation foodie overhead (OrangeClouds115 describes some of the plans towards the end of her VMD diary this morning).
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- Select scholarship recipients. This part makes some of us very nervous. My own feeling is that we will see how much total money we have available, figure out how many scholarships we can afford to give, and then select randomly among people who meet the criteria I laid out above, i.e. are involved in food and agricultural issues on Daily Kos.
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To anyone who’s read thus far and decided to participate in our effort, whether as a scholarship recipient or a donor, thank you!!!!!
And, for those of you who think this sort of organized effort is a good idea, but don’t feel particularly affiliated with the food & farm community, I urge you to consider using this model to set up something similar for your own "special interest groups," or even for your friends. (Or enemies... Obama Kossacks setting up scholarships for Clinton Kossacks, and vice versa? Think of the goodwill!)
And please, use the comments below to make nominations, ask questions, give advice, pledge dough, tell me what crucial information I forgot to include, and fantasize about NN ’08!!
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[Update] Ed in Montana directs me to last year's fundraising effort by kid oakland. They sent 17 people, not just a couple. And k.0.'s thank you, with details of the program, is here. Thanks, Ed!