This Post was contributed by LWVJ member Pat Watt
The LWV Juneau Board has come up with different ways to engage potential members and educate members and the public. Over the past two years we have undertaken several new initiatives.
- Our second Downtown Lunch and Learn will be held on Wednesday, December 14th, from noon to 1:00pm at the Baranoff. $17 for the buffet lunch. Speaker is Josie Bahnke, Director of the AK Division of Elections.
- Our second Annual “How to Run for Local Office” Workshop was held on June 25th for those interested in possibly serving on the Assembly or School Board.
- In this past fall LWV members wrote a series of “My Turn” articles that were published in the Juneau Empire (they all are posted here in the Empire My Turn category.)
- During the 2016 Legislative Session we kicked off “Capital Visits – A Civics Education Initiative” for all Juneau middle school kids. We hope to repeat that this coming session. (See Blog post of December 6, 2016.)
- And, we are hatching the idea of doing a “How to Lobby the Legislature” Workshop – if not this year, then in early 2018 right before the session starts.
So it was with interest that I learned through Social Media about a day long workshop offered by the Virginia LWV in the state capitol to educate interested residents about what to expect from their state legislative session and how state government works. Here is the link to the original article in the Daily Kos (a progressive blogging platform) describing the experience of some Richmond, VA, Soccer Moms who attended that workshop.
This is only one of many worthy initiatives and projects underway in LWV’s all over the US. We will use our Blog and Facebook page to share these ideas with our readers.
If you have an idea you would like to work on, or want to help with any of these current initiatives, please comment on this post or send us an email using the Contact link from this website.