Good day and welcome to DKos Asheville. This is the weekly DKos Asheville open thread for Saturday, March 21st. We try to get together every weekend to share with everyone what we're all up to in Western North Carolina and beyond. We hope this group serves to invigorate us locally and regionally here on Daily Kos, building on the sense of community that's grown through our online engagement. DKos Asheville can give us all a better sense of connection, a better understanding of who we stand with, work with, and share with. We hope this community can help leverage our orange passion for progressive politics to elect more and better Democrats.
For our next meet up on April 25-26 we will be returning to the theme of our first meet up on 4/20/2013: Meeting, spending time focusing on community and networking. And this time we will be taking the meet up on the road to Roanoke Virginia! Please sign up by dropping me a kosmail.
This is an open invitation for all Kossacks to unite in a beautiful and relaxed setting as Spring arrives to the Roanoke Valley and wakens the dogwood and apple blossoms.
We are actively recruiting Virginia candidates, everything from State Senate, State House, City/County Commissioner, School Board, Treasurer, Registrar, et al. We have secured several interested candidates already with more to come. We will have a complete update Next week.
Contingents from the local League of Women Voters and Drinking Liberally will be represented as well to encourage voter registration and offer face time with a verity of Democratic candidates. We have also invited many of the caregivers from the huge VA Hospital to come and face the candidates with their thoughts and concerns.
But most importantly will be the possibly historic conversations we'll be treated to by our very special guest that evening, Dr Ferguson Reid who has recently turned 90 and offered to commute physically and in person to our gathering to acknowledge GOTV efforts not only here and in North Carolina, but all of DKos as a whole.
We are blessed to have this vibrantly beautiful and compassionate person grace us with his presence, advice and wisdom together with encouragement and recognition for what we have been striving for since DKos first opened it's doors.
Here's how Dr Reid looks today. His voice is still as clear as a bell. I had the pleasure of speaking on the phone for an extended time with "Fergie" earlier this week and I was inspired and in a short time got myself educated about grass roots, boots on the ground techniques for coalescing political interest, especially on the precinct and district levels.
Dr Reid seems the kinda guy you'd like to talk to over, say a Belgian Waffle or strawberry crepes and French Roast Cafe'. There's always a chance attendees might share a table with our guest over breakfast.
An enlightening interview in video and text
A great article on Fergi.
An article on Fergie's 90 for 90 Voter Regisration Project
Please see details below and let me know if you would like to attend.
What A DKos Asheville meet up in Roanoke, Virginia.
When Saturday and Sunday, April 25-26, 2015. 1:00 pm Saturday till 1:00 pm Sunday.
Where Hotel Roanoke, Conference Center, 110 Shenandoah Avenue, Roanoke, Virginia, 24016-2025, USA
540-985-5900
Built in 1882, the Tudor-style Hotel Roanoke is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a member of the International Association of Conference Centers.
We will start our day with lunch on the top of a mountain at Mill Mountain Park and then go to the hotel in the afternoon.
Here is a Roanoke map from Mapquest
This is a Blueridge Outdoors look at Roanoke
This is the state of Virgina's official reference to Roanoke.
The more you read about the history and the vibrant nature of Roanoke, the more you'll want to visit with us on April 25th!
Why After seven successful and engaging meet ups, DKos Asheville's core members decided to take our next gathering on the road. The first reason is personal. Thankful for the friendship and generosity of his support for DKos Asheville meet ups over the last two years, we felt we needed to give back and spend time in Gordon20024's beloved city of Roanoke VA. He told us that for us to come and spread some DKos Asheville love would be the best "Thank you" ever. So after some scheduling and early planning, a spring meet up was born.
The second reason is that it offers us the opportunity to meet more Kossacks and other progressives from around the region including Virginia and parts of North Carolina to the north and east of us.
We would love to have members of the Virgina Daily Kos community join us as well as other regional activists and bloggers like the folks that contribute to and read the Blue Virginia blog.
We are also super happy that the Roanoke Chapter of Drinking Liberally is promoting the event. I posted on their blog today offering a warm welcome and Gordon20014 will be attending their next meeting to invite guests and talk about the meet up.
Details Please Kosmail me, randallt, if you would like to attend.
Let's get local, grow our network, build this community and help win elections.
We are excited to add DK luminary Maybees To our growing list of attendees!
RSVPs:
1. gordon20024
2. davehouck
3. randallt
4. Joieau
5. LamontCranston
6. Steerler Grrl
7. Steeler Guy
8. Otteray Scribe
9. DawnN
10. emmasnacker
MAYBEES:
Joy of Fishes
TexDem
VeloVixen
Vetwife
NEW!
