July 13, 2016

• What have you been doing John? The Cliff Notes Answer.

  Recently, I had a few people ask me what I have been up to since my prolific blogging days.

   

  1. Divorced , lived alone, then remarried

  2. Went back to college and been on the Dean's/President's list every semester.

  3. From 2009-2015 I ran an educational non-profit and also worked on several political campaigns.

  I just revamped the  website of the educational non-profit I ran to be a blog and I kind of answer the question 2009-2015 question there:

  Educate. Equip. Empower. Engage.!!

  Our motto reflected what TURN began as, an educational non-profit formed during the beginning of the Tea Party movement. We felt quickly that enough "Tea Parties" had emerged and it was time to focus all the energy that the movement created and positively direct that energy into training people how to interact with government.

  Within the first eighteen months, over 70% of our members had run for office, were on the county committee and/or regularly engaging and reporting on government meetings at all levels.

  We regularly had County Commissioners, State Representatives and Candidates for office come and speak to our group. We held candidate forums, and the majority of our members actively supported candidates campaigns of their choice.

  We also became involved in Public Policy decisions, with one of our largest victories being the PUC reversing it's decision to impose a new area code on our reason after we challenged their facts. After investigation, it turns out their facts were flawed. This campaign gave the opportunity to work with three different county commissioners (Clearfield, Elk and Jefferson), state representatives, local officials and the Chamber.

  We were also given the opportunity to testify before the Joint State Government Committee during their hearing on legislative redistricting. We came to support the restoration of the political subdivision of the fifth congressional district and were successful.

  Our direction went from holding regular meetings to working with groups throughout the commonwealth that shared similar missions so we could assist their efforts rather than duplicate them.

  Once we completed the initial phases of our task, educating and equipping our members, we began working with others to empower them and while actively engaging our elected representatives.

  The change of this site reflects the changes we have gone through as an organization. The old site served us well, but it had seen it's day. Today, we are more involved in the empower and engage aspect.

  Let's be direct. politics certainly involves building relationships with others, and those relationships, built over time are ones built on a track record of dealing honestly and fairly with our representatives. Many time there is no agreement we can come to, but we are able to engage each other in discourse and discuss the reasons why. We live to engage another day on another topic.

  When we speak of honest engagement, our goal is never to go for a gotcha moment or a soundbite as some groups do. Honest enegagement is built on trust and respect and not blind-siding our officials. That said, there are times when we disagree and have to hold a representative to account for their action or inactions.

  There are several representatives who are very nice people, friendly, engaging and we disagree with 80-90% of their policies, Yet, we have an open door with them. There are others, I hate to admit, we agree with 80-90% of the time and appreciate their votes, but do not have any relationship with because of past dishonesty on their part.

  As we taught, and also learned, Politics is a full contact sport, played with real people. Are you ready to engage?

  • 9:35 am
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