"Do Something" with Jeff & Kim

Action is the best antidote to anxiety. That's why Jeff & Kim are hosting an election-related party: to influence the election, inform how we each vote, and be in community together to nourish our democracy. 

• Saturday, October 26th, 12:30 - 6:30pm (see below for what will happen when)
• Location in Berkeley will be provided after you RSVP

[Thu 10/24 9pm update: We just sent out instructions to everyone who's RSVPed already. If you RSVP for Phone-Banking or Letter-Writing now, please watch your email closely for a follow-up and help us out by reading it!!]

PLEASE RSVP at this link (it'll help if you read the rest of this post first). We need a good estimate of #s by Thu Oct 24th, so we make sure to have enough materials + refreshments.

Here are details about the various activities:

Phone-Banking (12:30-3:15)

We will join a phone organized by Swing Left Bay Area and the Bay Area Coalition, which will most likely call voters in Nevada & Arizona. These days, phone banks use Zoom plus your phone, an autodialer to make the most efficient use of your time, and a script and coding instructions provided by the campaign. We're not expert phonebankers or trainers. 

[10/22 Update: we'd love to have a few more people who can help provide tech support with the Zoom/Autodialer approach. We've already got 15 RSVPs for phone-banking, and Jeff+Kim will be challenged to support everybody simultaneously!] 

If you plan to phone bank, please: 

• Show up by 12:40 to get a seat, connect to Wifi, make sure your Zoom is up to date, etc.
• Bring your own smartphone, laptop, and headphones  
• Register directly with SLEB by signing up here
• We encourage you to have done a training (Wed Oct 17 7pm) OR a previous phonebank (Wednesdays 5-6:30pm or Saturdays 1-3pm, or Sundays 1-2:30pm)! The more you do, the more you'll enjoy it!
• If the 26th is your first phonebank, there will be on online training that will take 45min or so
• If you're a little tech-savvy and can help others with tech support on the day of, please click the "Trainer" option in the RSVP

Extra Credit! Check out the Joy of Talking Politics with Strangers, a book by friend-of-a-friend Elizabeth Chur. I found it inspiring & helpful. 

Letter-Writing (1-3pm)

We'll write letters organized by Swing Left East Bay (most likely letters provided by Vote Forward, for Nevada, Arizona, or one of the tight Congressional races in California). If you plan to write letters, please: 

• Read about Vote Forward's approach here (no need to create an account or print anything -- we'll have all of that ready for you)
• On their Instructions page, scroll to the "Prepare Your Letters" section (you can ignore most of the stuff above it)
• See their "Volunteer Training" for tips on how to write a good letter with your own personal story -- that'll help you get right to writing when you arrive. 
• Please bring a pack of 20 stamps (or more!)
• Bring your favorite pen(s)

Learn about Your Ballot (3:30-4:30pm)

Bring your ballot (or sample ballot) and seek information and input from others!

We'll have some resources available: Jeff's election blog, plus recommendations from friends Edie Irons (Oakland + East Bay, co-written with her mom Janet Cox), Nathan Landau (Berkeley + East Bay), and maybe others. 

This will be a good time to ask questions of others. We promise there will be no unsolicited pitches for any particular candidate* or measure, and no hard sells if you do ask for input. Particularly at the local level, we'll probably have some varieties of opinion in the room. We're going to center the people who are asking for information, not the people who'd like to persuade others of their views.

*One exception: we'll assume you're a Harris voter 😉

Democracy Happy Hour (5-6:30pm)

Hang out and celebrate our community investment in democracy. We're inviting you because we like you, we don't see you often enough, and we'd like our friends to see/meet each other. We'll have some cocktails, mocktails, and light snacks, and we'd love to just hang out and see you! 

What can You Bring? [update 10/22]

Thanks to some early RSVP-ers who asked what you could bring. The answer is -- anything you think would be useful! 

• Phone-banking: please bring all the equipment you'll need (see above), and extra to share if you've got it
• Refreshments: if you'd like to bring something, put a note in the "Is there anything else we should know" field we'll have flatbread pizzas, chips 'n' salsa, hummus 'n' veggies, 
• Voter Education materials: if you've got info that you think others would like to see, please feel free to bring it a printout

Parking, Accessibility & Other Logistics

Bike parking is available next to our common house. Cars need to park on the street, not in the lot. 

Our common house and the other houses we're using for this event are only accessible via a set of stairs -- we're sorry that it isn't accessible to people with mobility limitations. 

RSVP

RSVP at this link by Thu Oct 24th 5pm, so we make sure to have enough materials + refreshments.