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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Catching Up

New Beginnings

With winter losing its grip on my new home, I am getting more time to get into my community. Before our last ice storm and the ground snow was mostly gone I walked my property and met another neighbor. A nice young couple with a very young child living my idea of the American dream. I actually found I owned more land than I thought.

On the political side of things, our Cozy Conservative Corner is running well and has a core of five people who show up regularly every Tuesday 8am at LaFiesta in downtown Hart at the light. BTW all are welcome to our breakfast. At our last one we had a visitor from Muskegon who was one of the originals at our group there. He had a motion to file at the Court House in Hart and he read my Cozy Conservative Corner email and came for breakfast. If you want to get on the email list let me know at glhotdogs513@gmail.com.

After the breakfast some of us went to the Hesperia where Andy brought us up to speed on how facebook works.


I recently talked with Rob Lemille who was one of the 4 people who came to the first CCCorner in Hart. He said he would be coming home from Florida and he will be attending our Cozy Conservative Corners at LaFiesta in Hart plus hopefully he will be home in time for our 2nd Oceana Tea Party. Let me now catch you up on our First one.

March 23rd we held our first Oceana Tea Party meeting at the Golden Township Hall at 7pm. The weather was truly awful and a lot of organizations cancelled out. We didn’t and still twelve people showed up including a reporter from the Oceana Herald Journal. After the meeting he said that he was going to write a story and would put the date of our next meeting in it. Good news for us, we need all the free publicity we can get.

I was impressed with the people that came. There obviously is enough interest in a Conservative message to justify a Tea Party in Oceana County. We did little advertising and had short notice – I was happy with the turnout.

At the meeting we sketched out the idea of the Tea Party and what we thought it could do. Our mission statement was passed around. It was a casual and friendly meeting. We also set the date for our next meeting for April 6th, and Tom just confirmed that we can use the same location. The meeting room holds only 40-50, but Tom also got the ok that we could use the gym if we had more than that. Our only problem would be chairs. I any one has access to a bunch of chairs let me know. I would like to have an extra 50 or so just in case. I remember the very first Tea Party meeting in Manistee and they had over 130 and had to turn people away. Call me Bob Carr at 231-728-3455. I placed an ad with the Journal to run on the 31st March. Tom paid for the last ad I’ll pay for this one.

Also at the meeting we decided that at the next meeting we would elect the leadership. We already have people who volunteered for Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and Treasurer. All will be welcome to run.

Our next meeting will have some reports from Township meetings. Andy said he’d report from Elbridge and about their wind turbine ordinance. I went to my first Newfield Township meeting and will report on that as well. Along those lines I and Tom plan on going to the County meeting and will talk about that. Below is the link to the Oceana County website.
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http://www.oceana.mi.us/
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I picked up the remaining County Directories that list all the contact info and meeting times for all the county and township meetings plus a world of other info. The County Clerk Rebecca Griffin let me have them for free as they are last year’s and out of date. There were about 15 which I’ll hand out at the meeting. The new ones are coming out within a month and I put an order in for either 50 or 100 depending on the cost. The old cost was $1 but now the counties cost is $1.60. I can only afford to buy a limited amount and will give them out mainly to people who lack computers.

Andy also will be presenting the idea of getting some people to car pool to Lansing for a “Keeping Them Honest Rally” being put on by AFP (Americans For Prosperity) and a bunch of Tea Party Groups April 14th.

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http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1296924135/efblike
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I’m going, The speaker list is impressive with Dick Morris leading the list with a lot of state wide dignitaries including Ruth Johnson, Bill Shuette , Bob Young and many more. Also please note in the link that the candidates hoping to replace Debbie Stabenow will be there also including Pete Hoekstra among others, I didn’t see Terri Lynn Land’s name, and hopefully she will be there as well. This will be an all day affair.

A lot of Tea Party groups are helping to put this on so I’ll enjoy seeing some old friends. This is on the 14th and I would like to bring up at the meeting the idea of Oceana having a Tea Party Rally in Hart the next day, the 15th. I’m sure I could get a speaker or two if we decide we want to have one. By the way when I placed the ad, the reporter who covered our last meeting was there and said that the Journal would cover it if we had it. So let’s get busy and figure this out. This could be a great chance to recruit new members and let people know the Tea Party at least in Oceana County is alive and well and growing.

We would need a few things to make this work.
Advertising
Guest Speakers
Sound system
Venue or Place hopefully with covered stage or platform.
An OK to do it.
And most important, volunteers to help make it happen; to man a sign in table and give out our flyers and information etc., also to invite all their friends to the rally.

Below is a pic of one we had in Muskegon. There we marched down the street to the park.


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All that aside, I had a great time at the Newfield Township meeting and when I asked if there was anything I could volunteer for I was warmly welcomed. The treasurer Tammy wanted me to become the alternate to sit on the Property Review Board. I talked with her today and the idea seems to be a good fit for me. I’ll meet with her later and get some info to study to make sure I’m capable then I’ll sign up. I also asked if I could become a poll worker and they were agreeable but I think the slots are filled but they wanted me to “tag along” to get broken into the job so I could fill any vacancies as they arise.

I was impressed with the openness of the meeting, all the leaders were accessible also there was a group of around 14 people in the audience which seemed like a large group for a township meeting and later when I talked with the Tammy the Treasurer she said that the audience was larger than normal.

I would suggest for anyone interested in watching your government at the local work to attend your township meeting.

That’s all for now,
Regards, Live Dangerously Be a Conservative

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