NC NARFE Congressional Meeting Prototypes

Presentation by Henry Brattlie

February 9-10, 2015

ANNUAL CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT MEETINGS

• Previously Few Joint Projects between Chapters• New Federation level Team approach

– It has been Charlie Pratt’s experience with the Federation provides few events or programs in which a team of members from different Chapters are involved in projects except annual convention committees. We have recently expanded the use of the team approach at the Federation level with the Convention Planning Committee and now the Standing Membership Committee.

• New Expanded use of Teams– We have seen improvement using this approach and hope to expand this approach to other activities. We have an

outstanding example of how a team’s efforts supported our Recruitment Efforts through the auspices of Blue Cross/Blue Shield at Health Fairs.

– Carolyn London, Federation Public Relations Officer, has for several years worked to gain admission to Health Fairs in the Research Triangle Area. Her efforts finally succeeded and led to gaining a greater degree of access to Health Fairs than we ever hoped for.

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ANNUAL CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT MEETINGS

• NC NARFE now at 7 additional sites– This year Federation President Ron Buffaloe quickly formed a team to support a greatly expanded effort to extend

NARFE’s presence at seven additional federal facilities’ Health Fairs. We received information request cards for over 400 individuals from these events, about the number of prospective members the Federation received for all of last year. We have received request from most if not all of these federal facility manager to participate again next year, a real break though. We can now begin an ongoing planning effort by creating a permanent committee to oversee Health Fairs activities in the future

• NEW PROJECT– We now hope to expand the success of the Health Fair project to a new project. The “Congressional District

Meetings” program will provide an opportunity to attract “Retired Prospective Members” from the community as well as “Active Potential Members”. We hope this program will become one of our joint projects which combines our efforts across organizations, Federation Areas and Chapters where the common interest is shared, in this case our shared legislative interest. Advertising locally and statewide, working with MOA and other organizations will increase participation interest in these meeting and provide many great opportunities to attract new members

ANNUAL CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT MEETINGS

• Annual Congressional District Meetings– We now propose to host “Annual Congressional District Meetings” for each of our 13 members of congress.

You may recall the discussion at the National Meeting about realigning our Chapters along congressional boundary line to increase our leverage in congress. Instead, let’s host an annual meeting with our Congressional Representative. Chapters will play a critical role by find locations suitable for this type of teleconference and hosting the meeting in their service area. National NARFE has offered to support this effort by providing their Webinar system at no cost. Webinar telecast are similar to our GoToMeeting sessions used at our annual meetings.

• Meetings will draw diverse group– Unlike the Health Fairs program which attract Active Federal Employees, these Congressional District meetings

would provide an opportunity for providing a large diverse audience of prospective members, attract participation by our congressmen, and increase the awareness of NARFE within the local community though advertising. We hope to make these Annual meeting become the major annual event for our Chapters.

ANNUAL CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT MEETINGS

• Recruitment Potential– A quick look at the potential for recruitment for these Congressional District Meetings. The latest data available

(2012) list over 133,000 Active and Retired Federal Employees in North Carolina. Approximately half of this number are listed as Retired (69,213).

• We have room to grow membership– We have a lot of room to grow our membership if we can provide relevant and well thought-out programs. While this

program involves the legislative area to a great extent, it also has implications for all aspects of our mission.

• We can grow NC NARFE Clout– Again, our clout depends upon our voting strength and level of participation at election time. Can we develop

measures of how well we participate such as financial participation in NARFE-PAC, summaries of issues we support, and number of contacts (letter, call and email) we have had with congress during the year.

ANNUAL CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT MEETINGS

• Face-To-Face Meetings and Webinars– We propose having face–to-face meetings, and/or combined with webinars, with our representatives with a host

moderator to ask specific prepared and spontaneous questions from our audience. Questions will developed beforehand with help from the National NARFE staff while additional questions from the audience will be emailed to the host moderator and organized by the onsite staff during the meeting. This may be the first time for many of us to interact with our congressman in any forum.

• Opportunity for Media coverage– Another advantage of “Congressional District Meeting” will be the impact on the role of our Chapters in the

communities they serve by the hosting of events which have news potential.

CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT WEBINAR MEETINGS

• Contact Congressional Members– Offer Virtual meeting with NARFE Members in District– Offer to conduct Meeting from Their office or NARFE HQ– Set firm Time and Date approximately 30 days out– Try to establish willingness to do Quarterly Virtual Meetings

• Set Webinar– Contact NARFE HQ to set Webinar time and date and who will facilitate– Establish how people request to join webinar (Multiple possibilities)– Establish how people will join webinar (Multiple possibilities)– Establish list for reminder notifications

CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT MEETINGS

• Contact Potential Audience– Contact list of Current NARFE Members in Congressional District

• Identify how many interested in coming to central location• Identify how many interested in joining by Webinar

– Create Public Interest in attending live or on Webinar• Newspaper Ads• Other media efforts• Provide access to instructions on how to join Webinar or attend in person

CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT MEETINGS

• Create Program– Create/Solicit advance questions for Congressman– Provide advance questions to Congressman when possible– Have strong Facilitator– Live questions from audience and on-line

• Establish technical equipment needs– Equipment needed at NARFE HQ– Equipment needed at Congressional Office– Equipment needed at District Live site– Equipment needed by People joining Webinar

CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT MEETINGS

• Group meeting Equipment Needed:– Mixer with USB– Hand-held Microphone– Computer– Speaker– Video camera or Second Laptop

with camera

CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT MEETINGS

•Let’s work together!

•QUESTIONS?

NC NARFE Fedration of Chapters