Regina Clemente and Dave Fleischer will be presenters at WHY MESSAGE MATTERS

WHY MESSAGE MATTERS:
Marriage Messaging Workshops

Join us for a training on campaign messaging and lessons learned from the marriage ballot measure campaigns in Maine and California. We will be examining the television ads run by both sides in both states.

Focus of the discussion:

• Does the Maine campaign offer guidance as we seek to reverse Prop 8?
• What have we learned — from history and from data — about what works and what doesn’t work in terms of messaging in these elections?

Sponsored by:
Equal Roots, Stonewall Dems/Young Dems and Vote for Equality

Presenters:
Dave Fleischer, head of the LGBT Mentoring Project
Dave has been involved in the efforts to curb and defeat anti-gay ballot measures since 1993. He created and ran the premier political training programs in LGBT community, first for the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund (1993-1998) and then for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (1999-2006). Over 500 of his training alumni have taken critical leadership roles in campaigns to defeat anti-LGBT ballot measures, and over 150 have won elected office.

Regina Clemente, Project Manager of Vote for Equality
Regina has been doing community and electoral organizing for the past seven years. She began as an organizer with ACORN, and went on to work at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles, where she helped lead field efforts  for parental notification, and other issue and candidate campaigns in various states. Regina was the Hollywood Field Manager for the NO on Proposition 8 campaign, and also served as a Regional Field Director for Maine’s NO on 1 campaign in October.

Chris Smith, co-founder of Equal Roots Coalition
Chris grew up in south Orange County and moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA in 2002.  During college he became involved in LGBT activism and co-founded the Student Coalition for Marriage Equality (SCME), a student-run organization which existson several university campuses today.  After the passing of Proposition 8, Chris teamed with three friends to establish the Equal Roots Coalition.  Equal Roots is aimed at fostering good working relationships between existing organizations that serve the LGBT community. The organization’s objectives include promoting awareness of LGBT history, and communicating the needs of the community.

These trainings will be interactive and feature a lot of content, discussions and feedback/suggestions. This will go beyond just receiving instruction and become a “think tank” for our future battles. The focus will be to cover the following, as time permits:

Ø What messages have been used by both the pro-equality and anti-gay forces in campaigns from Hawaii in 1989 through Maine in 2009?
Ø Which messages have been successful and which have failed? Why?
Ø What messages do voters respond to in face-to-face settings – such as canvasses and peer to peer conversations?
Ø How has online media changed the way messages are disseminated and which types of messages get through to voters? Which ones just rally the base?
Ø How can we respond to a vicious attack from the other side with an effective counter-message?
Ø What are some new approaches we can try to counter the messages we KNOW the other side will bring back to California?

Ø How do we communicate with friends and family and how can we encourage others to do so in a manner that is relatively comfortable for them, safe and effective?

WORKSHOP DATES:
Thursday, Nov. 5  (7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.) -or-
Wednesday, Nov. 11  (7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.)

LOCATION:
The Village, the LA Gay & Lesbian Center’s facility in Hollywood
1125 N McCadden PL, Los Angeles, CA  90038

NOTE: EACH SESSION IS LIMITED TO 30 PARTICIPANTS, to maximize opportunities for in-depth Q&A and discussion

PREREQUISITE: To participate, you MUST complete at least ONE SHIFT talking to voters — at a canvass or phone bank — in October or November 2009.
Find a shift that fits your schedule on our calendar of UPCOMING ACTIONS.

SIGN-UP HERE to attend the Nov. 5 WHY MESSAGE MATTERS workshop

SIGN-UP HERE to attend the Nov. 11 WHY MESSAGE MATTERS workshop

Dave Fleischer will be among the presenters at WHY MESSAGE MATTERS