7/15 PACT Meeting

GuilfordPACT met on Tuesday night. The meeting was well attended and
included several new members. Jen Milano took minutes again (thanks
Jen!) and these should be available shortly. Next meeting is scheduled
for August 5th at 6.30pm.

Brief update:

* Membership at 158, need to increase membership both to influence
the BOE and get out the vote -- answer the BOE question "How big is the
PACT and can they get out the vote"
* Member social events -- PACT Women's Night Out at Nada's in North
Branford (BYOB, contact Jamie Mikolay, mikolayhome@earthlink.net)
Men's night out, family BBQ and social event later in August TBA.
* Fundraising -- individual and possible event at Stonehouse in the
fall (please contact Christine Blumberg, christine@robertsblumberg.com
if you are willing to help organize, we need help here!)

Speaker was JR Romano, who ran a successful school bond campaign in
Derby CT. He was very positive and had some excellent points. He
brought up the need for "three top points" to present to the community
-- be thinking about this for next meeting. Senator Ed Meyer also
contributed his experience regarding person to person campaigning.

Key points:
* We need to get out there face to face to talk about this and
identify "Yes" voters. We estimate we need 3-5 thousand.
-- Multiple venues -- community events (contact Roger Winer at
roger.winer@roche.com) several events this weekend! (we may be
calling), door to door, neighborhoods, groups -- get your neighbors
over, etc.
-- Ways to identify "yes" voters and communicate our
preference/support to the BOE: sign a petition and/or join the PACT.
This material is attached. Multiple other relevant publications are
available on the website for distribution or reference:
www.guilfordpact.org/documents.html. We are printing more trifold
brochures and working on handouts regarding school deficiencies.
* We have asked for PACT members attending the next meeting on
August 5th to do their best to bring 30 "yes" voters/ new members (10
per week). Bring your petitions or membership forms -- We will show
members how to put these in the database.

Member survey results were presented and the PACT White Paper was
discussed. Draft will be presented for meeting approval on
August 5th for tentative presentation to the BOE on August 11th.

Thanks to Doug Newman for his work on the survey. Results may be viewed at

http://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=w_2fY6BRubrr9m_2b4g_2f03rMs74GdZE...

Thanks and hope to see everyone August 5th at 6:30pm!