Quaker Lobby Day 2012 - Monday February 20

We look forward to seeing you at our now fourth annual QUAKER LOBBY DAY in Olympia on Monday, February 20 (Presidents' Day) from 9 am through your lobby visits in the afternoon. The day consists of a gathering at the Olympia Meeting House in the morning where we will have an opportunity to worship together, hear a speaker or two, organize around a particular area of legislation for the day, receive some basic lobby training, and then go on to the Capitol grounds to engage in visits with our various representatives in the late morning, early afternoon. 

We especially welcome those who have never been on a lobby visit before. You will find the opportunity to meet with your legislators and their staff as empowering as it is informative, and we will see that you are well prepared. Friends tend to be excellent lobbyists because we bring a discipline of listening, social consciousness about peace and justice, and long and well-respected history of Quaker engagement in public policy debate.  

For those who have made lobby visits previously, this is an opportunity to reacquaint yourself with your legislator and their staff and further establish a working relationship with them. We know from studies and experience that building personal relationships with our elected officials makes it more likely that we will be much more effective in our advocacy when in the future we need to contact our legislators on a specific issue. Building a working relationship with your elected official is the difference between simply being an "activist" who advocates for a specific cause on a particular date, and being a "lobbyist" who establishes an ongoing relationship that builds trust and openness so that both parties can better listen and exchange information on a breadth of topics over an extended period of time.

To register, contact FCWPP with QLD 2012 in the subject line!