Welcome back to Austin, TX for the very first Camp Obama of the general election cycle! There are also sessions in Los Angeles today, and in New York City next weekend. The focus of this Camp Obama is to train people who can commit 5 weeks of their time to solid volunteering. These folks will become leaders wherever they go, and some of them might work with all of you when you find your way into an Obama campaign office this election cycle. It’s really exciting to be part of this grassroots organizing. I’m looking forward to hearing about what brings these folks in to participate.
Join us in Austin below the jump for photos and session recaps, to be updated throughout the weekend.
Important: There are Camp Obamas scheduled next weekend for Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. More info below!
Best of all, official Obama blogger Amanda Scott is here to liveblog the event on Obama’s blog! She’s going to be updating it all day with information from some of the sessions, so folks across the country can become better volunteers and organizers. I’ll link to her posts here and put a few pictures up in between sessions. For those of you who can’t make it to a Camp Obama training, this will be a great resource!
If you’re interested in participating in volunteer activities for Barack Obama, head over to the Action Center and sign up!
Camp Obama is a two-day affair, and while I’m not going to re-post this tomorrow, I will update today's post with links from Amanda’s blog posts for easy navigation. Be sure to check them all out. Here’s a list of the sessions she’s planning to cover. I’ll add a link when her posts are live. These are all really important aspects of grassroots organizing. I'm actually pretty excited to learn how to be more effective in my community.
If you'd like to join us here in Austin next weekend and prepare to Turn Texas Blue, RSVP for Camp Obama by Thursday, August 21 at texas (at) barackobama.com
Day 2 – Sunday August 17th |
Leadership Training |
Volunteer Recruitment and Retention |
Building a Community |
Building Teams |
Building Relationships |
Putting Together an Organizational Meeting |
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Here are some photos as we get started!
Folks arrived from across Texas to participate today, with strong representation from San Antonio in particular. The organizing team also hails from across the state, and includes students, grandmothers, an ex-Republican, and a faith-based outreach coordinator. Best of all, they're as diverse as the people of Texas.
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While you’re here, consider hosting a DNC Watch Party in your home when Obama makes his big speech in Denver. If you’re in Central Texas, you can also join Texans for Obama at Scholz Garten. Meet other Obama supporters in your area, and get excited to start organizing!
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Sign-ins are brisk and the crowd is energized! The woman in the photo on the far right, Bobbi, is a delegate to the DNC from my State Senate district, and one of my voter registration volunteers! We registered people at the Gay Pride parade together. By the way, if you're in Texas and need supporter materials in your neck of the woods, check out
Blue Texas Stuff.
Ok, the first session is starting with an introduction to the campaign's strategies and goals. We're going to work on developing our own personal goals, too. More to come...
9:58 a.m. Texas Time: Juan is introducing volunteers in Texas who have made a national difference for the campaign. The head Latino media staffer is from here in Austin! We're showing some great videos about what the over one million volunteers are doing across the country. Also, fundraising numbers for July are about to break soon.
Here in Texas we're relaunching the Obama Fellows program for folks that can commit 30+ hours per week. We're also starting an Intern program. If you're in Texas and want to join in, go to the website and sign up!. If you'd like to join us here in Austin next weekend, RSVP for Camp Obama by Thursday, August 21 at texas (at) barackobama.com
10:57 a.m. Texas Time: We just broke out into our small groups to talk about goals. We talked about the campaign's goals, and our individual goals as organizers and volunteers. Every volunteer should have clear, specific goals and a way to achieve them. How many voters do you want to register each month? How much money to you want to raise? Good goals are manageable, specific, and attainable. Once we have clear goals, we can set up a plan to achieve them.
There are five folks in my small group, with goals ranging from better canvassing skills to volunteer recruitment to better framing of the issues. We'll work on all of that in the coming days. We also talked about time management, which is a critical component of organizing.
Meanwhile, fundraising numbers are out -- $51 million in July! Have you kicked in for August yet? Help fund the activism and organization that these campers are learning to facilitate today!
Amanda's first blog post is up! There's a great slideshow of the people here, some of whom are all-star volunteers!
Update 12:54 p.m. Texas Time: The trainees are on a lunch break. They shared their stories of why they became involved, talked about challenges and how to overcome them, and then were all deputized as voter registrars here in Travis County! This means they get to become part of the world's greatest all-volunteer voter registration drive. :-)
I heard some amazing stories from the folks in my group about how they came to step up and make change in this country. From former Peace Corps volunteers to school board members to regular citizens who care enough to want to participate, they're all passionate about different issues and looking for various ways to help Barack Obama win in November. Here's a photo of my group, on the left, and my favorite elected official, Constable Bruce Elfant, training our new deputy registrars on the right.
And now I am going to go eat my delicious tacos from El Chilito for lunch.
Update 2:00 p.m. Texas Time: We just wrapped up a session about community organizing. We talked about Obama's background as an organizer and what that means for his campaign. My group talked about how he and the campaign are very bottom-up -- staffers listen to volunteers and implement their ideas. We also talked about how to be a good organizer -- be flexible, stick to deadlines, follow the budget. The folks in the group had a ton of experience, from working as a building inspector to running a school board campaign to organizing their precincts. We also discussed the importance of thanking volunteers, respecting their time, and making sure they come back for more!
Update 2:11 p.m. Texas Time: There are Camp Obamas scheduled for next weekend in Austin, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, aaand San Antonio! For any of these events, please email texas (at) barackobama.com and one of the other people in the room with me right now will take care of it. They are pretty much all day, 9-5 Saturday and Sunday. The Dallas event is at the ObamaDallas HQ in South Dallas. The Austin event is here at the Coordinated Campaign HQ. No details on the other locations yet.
Also, the Obama Blog has another great post up, this one on Sam's story and why he supports Obama.