WR Greens Meeting Notes 2018-02-15
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Contents
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
- Jobs get the most attention
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?
- Housing, small (local) business, school board merger
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"
- Target 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
- Get ideas from other successful campaigns
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