emmajane.net

In doing some research for the blog post that I'm still writing I called the Sierra Club of Ontario and chatted with their Chapter Director, Dan McDermott. He's going to follow up with the national executive director. But in the mean time, here's sharing a little weirdness with you too.

Campaigning in public for a members-only event is a bit weird. I've had a lot of people congratulate me on my nomination and I have to stop and remind people that I'm not the candidate yet. Right now I'm one of two nominees to be the candidate and it's still up to the members of the Green Party to decide who they want to represent them. Which leads to the inevitable comment, "But I want you to win so that I can vote for you!" and the inevitable response of me handing over a membership kit and telling the friend to join the party so that they can vote for me.

Time is running out. If you want to make sure you can vote for me in the next federal election you need to:

Do you love numbers and data as much as me? You're going to love this little tid-bit if you do. Remember how I told you that the kits have a button pinned onto them, right? Brace yourself, this one's a doozy: based on the location of the double piercing on the sheet of paper that's left from the pin I can track where (or when) I gave away the kit. This week's kits: top row of the membership form.

Now I know it's a silly thing to do. ... it's the membership that's important. Right? Not what day the form was given out. Sheesh. But think of the implications. Using little tags like this you can actually measure the reaction to every action that you take and adjust future messages to elicit more of the desired responses. In other words: it can make you more effective at communicating with your intended audience. It's like the power of Air Miles but used for good.

One of the amazing birthday presents that I got this year was a kit from Badge-a-minit to make 1.25" buttons. I was inexplicably excited about it. But immediately drew a blank of what to put on my buttons.

Skip ahead nearly two months.

Tonight was the first Green Party meeting where myself and the other nominee (Lynn Morgan) were asked to speak about why we decided to become politicians. I'm one of those crazy process people who wishes that more people would care about politics. I wish more people would vote. And I wish more people would pay attention to the decisions other people make that affect everyones' lives. I get excited when I can make a difference in someone's life---when I can enable them to find their own voice and participate in their chosen community.