NYS Upstate Affiliate Head meeting – Syracuse, NY – Strong Hearts Café

Thank You to All Who Attended the Upstate NY Affiliate Chapter Head Meeting and Thank You to Amber Coon for Recommending StrongHearts Café for the Meeting Venue!

Picture taken by a satisfied customer at the excellent vegan restaurant in Syracuse, NY: Stronghearts Café.
It’s a MUST VISIT when in Syracuse
left to right: Peter Muller, Anne Muller,  Amber Coon, Robin Yager, Laura Brown, Joe  Sarnicola, Rita Sarnicola

Attendees:
Laura Brown (Capitol Region) - Amber Coon (observer) - Anne Muller (outreach) - Peter Muller (Chair) - Joe Sarnicola (Auburn) - Rita Sarnicola (Auburn) - Robin Yager (Central NY) - Jeff Termini (Western NY) (MIA)

Bill Status:
The good news: YAY!  All three bills passed the NYS Assembly Encon committee and no doubt will pass a floor vote

Those bills are:
1)Ban shooting contests
2) Ban canned hunting
3) Home Rule for Trapping
Originally we had a 4^th bill that was the dissection notification law, but it turned out to be embedded within another bill that was sponsored by Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal and Senator Suzi Oppenheimer.  That Bill will require a follow-up. 
The bad news: The Senate Is Dysfunctional. Once we know who’s in charge, we’ll go for moving these bills to rules and then to a floor vote!

Website
Peter reported on the new LOHV websites. The National site http://LOHV.org, and the state site http://LOHV-NY.org  have been launched.  He suggested that each affiliate webpage have the same "look and feel" as the national and state sites.  Peter will be more than happy to implement it for the affiliate so that the state chapter site will have a link to the affiliate page of the NY Chapter or the affiliate site.  You’ll be accessible from the state and national sites.  Your website may include a blog just as the national and state sites do. The web-site is a work in process so suggestions for improvement are welcome.

Help For Affiliates – Just Ask –

If your affiliate needs any of the following, you can get them from the national site by clicking on "Tools": 

• Starting an LOHV Chapter - Instructional CD
• LOHV current flyer (in PDF format)
• LOHV logo graphics (in web and print formats, various sizes)

The following items can be ordered from the NY State chapter at cost:

• Business cards - we can generate here
• Fliers - we can generate here with your affiliate name and contact info
• T-shirts - we have to order
• Buttons to be worn when lobbying - just order, we have plenty
• Banners - there's a place called PDQ here and I'll get info re prices from them.
• Forms to use when doing voter registration drives - we can generate here with your contact info.

Please contact Pete at peter@lohv.org  if you have any questions.

Goals For The End Of August:
At the meeting, the following goals were decided:

• Affiliates will meet with local candidates and those meetings, plus questionnaire responses, plus an analysis of the viability of a candidate will lead to endorsements
• Web page in full swing
• Increasing your local database by at least 300 names

Things to do real soon:
Submit bills that you'd like to see pass.  We can always have a wish list.  Keep in mind that it's not easy to lobby for more than about 3 bills during a session.  If we have more people who can travel to Albany, then we will be able to take on more bills.  Each bill takes quite a lot of time to push through.

Odds and Ends:
Robin suggested using Café Press www.cafepress.com  for ordering T-shirts' mugs and other trinkets.  Please share your experiences with them or other vendors.

Rita suggested capturing names, e-mail addresses, etc. when people come to the website. That suggestion has been implemented on the NY State site via the "Join" button.

We also agreed that a good time to get everyone together would be on the day of the Legislative Breakfast in Albany, which is the closest Wednesday to March 15^th which is March 17^th 2010.  Please mark your calendars and be sure to make arrangements with co-workers, cat-sitters, etc. so that you can attend.

Anyone coming from downstate NY is welcome to stay in New Paltz the Tues. before and then leave from here in the morning.  There are also hotels and motels in Albany.  If you have experience staying anyplace, please share – include the website of the place

On the 17^th of March, we will try to make early appointments with legislators and then have our NYS meeting at about 1 p.m. in the same room.

We talked about LOHV work being seasonal.  We are now moving from the lobbying "season" to the database building "season."  As the weather gets warmer, it's a good time to slip into your LOHV t-shirts, take your portable table and banner to a park, mall or street corner, and begin to get folks signed up for LOHV notices and endorsement announcements.  We suggested that you draw people to the table with a local issue, such as getting a local tethering law passed (making it illegal to tether a dog outside for more than 5 hours, for example).  Choose a local issue or something that's a no-brainer.  The specific animal issue will bring people to the table, then you can ask people to sign up to be on the LOHV list. Also ask them if they are registered to vote.  If they aren't, be sure to give them a voter registration form that you can mail for them.  It's a simple form and they just have to fill it out right there.  For that reason, it would be good to set up by a post office box so that the forms can be placed inside immediately.  Check with your post office to see if they will let you set up there.

We will be setting up a downstate meeting soon.  Pete will set up a LOHV NYS listserve so we can begin to share and help each other achieve goals.