WR Greens Meeting Notes 2018-02-15

WR Greens Monthly Meeting

Date

Thursday, 15 February 2018

Location

Re/Max office, 720 Westmount Road, Kitchener

Participants

Laurel Russwurm, David Weber, Matt Piggott, Sam Nabi, Zdravko Gunjevic, David Dolson, Trevor (Meyer?), Marcia Fukudome, Teresa Cornwell, Stacey Danckert, Tess McDonald, Nicole (McCallum?), Bob Jonkman

Introductions and updates

• All ridings represented except Cambridge

Kitchener Centre

• Mike Schreiner is coming to town on Thursday, 22 March 2018
• Issue Campaign: Affordable Housing
  • Door-to-door, postcards
  • Solution: "Unlock the existing housing"
    • rent basements
    • tiny houses
    • use existing spaces
  • This is more sustainable than new development
  • Legislation will require municipalities to conform
  • Provincial governments have downloaded housing onto municipalities
  • This is a policy that doesn't impose new taxes on residents
  • Also, require a minimum percentage of affordable housing in new developments

Kitchener--Conestoga

• Having the CA and EDA Annual General Meeting on 15 March 2018
  • Meeting notice on KitCon blog
  • Nomination meeting to be held early April, pending approval of date from GPO
• KitCon has only 18 Green Party members in the riding
  • Need to make phone calls to supporters, encourage membership

Kitchener South -- Hespeler

• Got some new volunteers and members
• Campaigning on three issues: People, Jobs, Planet
  • Jobs get the most attention
    • Deals with minimum wage issue
    • Green policy is to increase the exemption level for the Employer Health Tax in payroll
    • Bob asks: What about a progressive tax for business? A: Not in GPO policy yet
    • There are grants for business, but small businesses don't have the resources to pursue them
    • There is also the Green Economy to boost jobs

Waterloo

• The Team: Tammy is Campaign Manager; Marcia is the Fundraising and Events Manager
• What are the issues in Waterloo?
  • Housing, Transit, Healthcare
• Waterloo Region-wide issues:
  • Housing, small (local) business, school board merger
    • need for a single school system - The Hamilton Spectator (appeared in TheRecord 12 July 2017)
    • The elephant in the room on school closures - TheRecord (12 May 2017)
    • St. Agatha Catholic school closure in Kitchener--Conestoga?

Election Goals

Before 9 May 2018

• 9 May 2018 is the start of the writ period

• Fundraising!

• Every volunteer needs a phone call
• Call all Green supporters for a "vote pledge"
  • Target Strong Greens
    • eg. Kitchener Centre has 5000 "Strong Greens"
• Every donor nees a phone call from the candidate
• Events with Mike Schreiner for fundraising
• Text messaging campaign
  • Be aware that some people will be turned off by text messages on their phones; may incur SMS costs for recipients
• Segmented Targetting
• Social Media
  • Instagram and Snapchat are preferred by young people
  • Twitter and Facebook are used primarily by the over-40 crowd

• Earned Media
  • The Communications Manager for Mike Schreiner lives in Kitchener
  • Get media attention at events, eg. "Housing is important"

• Canvassing
  • Every riding should canvass its top 5 polls
  • Get new volunteers to work on Mike's campaign for canvass training
    • Peter Vardy is an excellent teacher
    • Bruce Hyer is campaigning in Guelph to get 1000 votes

From 9 May to 7 June 2018

• Get Mike Schreiner elected!
  • Stacey Danckert plans to campaign in Guelph every weekend

• Fundraising goals
  • Waterloo: $5000 firm, $10,000 stretch
  • Tax deductions set by CRA, so they're administered federally
  • Donation limits:
    • $1,200 personal donation to the GPO
    • $1,200 personal donation to Constituents Association
    • $1,200 personal donation to the local campaign
      • But candidates can contribute up to $5,000
    • Get 75% back on the first $400 donated, so $400 for the campaign only costs $100

• Get signs up soonest!
  • Put them up the day the election is called, 9 May 2018
  • When calling supporters ask "Can we put up a sign?"
  • What is our goal for signs?
  • Is Jesse around? (sign co-ordinator in 2015)
  • Keep track of mileage when putting up signs!
    • Donate gas money to the campaign, get re-imbursed

• Other donation issues:
  • Supplying food for volunteers after canvassing? Must get a receipt (over $30?)

Achieving Goals

Fundraising

• Provincial changes?
  • Paid-at-the-door fundraising cannot have the candidate present
  • Better to ask for donations
  • Cost recovery is OK, but makes the finances complicated, so don't do that
  • $20 cash donation is the maximum
  • $10+ donations need a receipt

• Local Beer event
  • Addresses the barriers to craft breweries selling product

• ION train and Mike Schreiner?
  • There are many rules concerning access
  • eg. photos at GRT and schools

• Other Fundraising ideas
  • Get ideas from other successful campaigns
    • Ottawa, Barrie, Muskoka
  • Get monthly donations
  • Selling plants
  • Canoeing down the Grand River
    • Fun, but not lucrative
    • Maybe in September?
  • Donated items and sales?
    • Receipts are needed for portion of payment above fair market value
    • Setting values for auctions is tough, recommend to avoid
    • For any auction/sales event, call Elections Ontario first

Other activities

• Waterloo is holding a Board Games night
• Ride the transit system, meet people
• Befriend other groups
  • Alliance Against Poverty (AAP) is organizing a Free Transit campaign, Bob will be involved
  • Berlin Cafe owner Graham Roe
• Tree planting events around Earth Day (21 April 2018)
• Community Gardens?
  • They need volunteers
  • Meet the Candidate, earned media
  • Adopt-A-Garden!
• Maple Syrup Festival
  • KitCon looking for a vendor spot; GPO button-making activities
  • Get Mike Schreiner in the Celebrity Pancake Flipping Contest
• Make stickers for laptops, bumper stickers
• Province -- Green Belt
  • Consultation on 22 February 2018
  • Kitchener Open House - Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation

• Fair Debates
  • If Mike Schreiner is in the debates then he gets votes
  • Put the https://fairdebates.ca/ links on campaign and CA web sites
  • GPO gets per-vote funding, so must be included in debates (otherwise, what are people paying for?)

• Fill seats at local debates early
  • Other parties will try to occupy front seats to disrupt other candidates

• Show up at other events rather than organizing your own
  • But be sure to have your own fundraising!

• Debate Watching Night
  • Everyone gets together to watch the leaders debate
  • Builds campaign spirit

• Have shared events when possible
  • Share costs
  • Each CA organizes one large event
    • Kitchener Centre will take the 22 March 2018 event with Mike Schreiner
    • Kitchener Conestoga will look at getting Mike in the Maple Syrup Festival

Advertising

• Pre-roll at Princess Theatre ($300?)
• The Record: $1000 for 1/8 page ad (?)
  • Lower rates for community papers (Kitchener Post, Wateroo Chronicle)
• Facebook ads? Are they effective?
  • Get better analytics on digital advertising
• 570AM: $200/ad?

• Signs from GPO?
  • Some will be available
  • Target-To-Build ridings will get more support (Kitchener Centre)

Getting volunteers

• What can they do?
  • Create newsletter
  • Phone calls from scripts
  • Canvassing
  • Debate support
  • Sign putting up and taking down
• Volunteer coordination will be Region-wide
• Sam Nabi and Julia Gogoleva are the volunteer coordinators
• Volunteer appreciation night?
  • Not high on list
  • Link what volunteers do to the Big Picture
  • Monthly volunteer potlucks
  • Get volunteers involved immediately
  • Provide training
  • Volunteer T-shirts (from GPO?)

Campaign Office?

• Marcie may look for possible space
• Need to rent at "market value"
• We can give a value-add of cleaning up, painting
• Is the old LCBO office available again?
• The CA files a separate return for expenses like this

Event Planning Meeting

• Stacey will set up 2 polls:
  • Event Planning Date
  • Selecting preferred fundraising ideas

Notes taken by Bob Jonkman