2006 Tennessee Libertarian Party Convention Report

Report on FSP table at the 4/8/06 TN LP Convention by Keith Carlsen

On Saturday April 8th, I ran a Free State Project table at the Tennessee Libertarian Party Convention in Nashville, TN. The Convention was typical of LP meetings, low on attendees but high on energy. Speeches were given by lots of folks including think tank chairs and political candidates from more than one political party.

Two people became Friends of the FSP and another person signed up for the FSP News. Tennessee has three active LP county chapters. I already bring FSP related information to one of the county chapters every few months. I put together FSP info packets and gave them to the FSP supporters that live in the other two counties so LP members in all of the active counties will be frequently reminded of the FSP.

Respectfully, Keith Carlsen

Bottom photo info: Keith setting up the FSP table with help from JR Enfield, new Friend of the FSP

Keith setting up the FSP table with help from JR Enfield, new Friend of the FSP

Keith setting up the FSP table with help from JR Enfield, new Friend of the FSP

The January 2006 Free State Project Recruitment Challenge

Results are in! The official January signup count is in and we welcomed 60 new Participants! This result is well above our usual January doldrums. The January Recruitment Challenge was generously sponsored by the Tennessee Local Group and then matched by Vince Silvia and John P. Cunningham of Massachusetts. All three are donating $10 for each new January signup (Vince up to $500), so with 60 new Participants, the total donated comes to $1,700. Thank you to our kind sponsors, and a special thanks to each and every one of the 60 new people who joined the FSP in January! (2/12/06)

The members of the Tennessee FSP local group are committed to the future success of the FSP. We have worked hard in 2005 to recruit new members to the FSP. Participants and Friends of the FSP posted recruitment flyers on college campuses from Chattanooga to Memphis. We appeared on two talk radio shows and set-up a table at the 2005 Gandhian Conference on Nonviolence. We also gave speeches at a couple Libertarian Party county meetings and set up a table at the state Libertarian Party convention.

However, we could have done much more, and much more is exactly what we plan to do in 2006. The TN FSP will start off the year with a recruitment challenge for our comrades:

For every member that joins the FSP in January 2006, the TN FSP will donate ten dollars to the FSP.

This is the perfect opportunity for fence sitters to hop off the fence and into the Free State. Need an excuse to have a local group meeting? Use this drive as the excuse. Need that extra incentive to post recruitment flyers around your town? Use this drive as the excuse. Over the last few months, the FSP has gained around fifty new members per month. Fifty times ten dollars is five hundred dollars. We're prepared to contribute that and more—make us give more! More money for the FSP means more money for recruitment. More money spent on recruitment means even more new participants.

01/15/06 Update: John P. Cunningham (of Massachusetts) has also matched the pledge. He will donate $10 to the FSP for each new membership in the month of January 2006 - up to $10,000!

12/18/05 Update: Vince Silvia (of Massachusetts) has pledged to match the TN FSP with an additional $10 for each new membership in the month of January 2006 – up to $500. And he challenges any other FSPer to match him!

Excited about recruiting new members in January 2006? Excellent. For useful resources, see the following parts of the FSP website:

• FSP Volunteer Center
• Downloads to spread around
• Community Liaisons
• Local Groups

Join the FSP

Local Groups

• To find your Local Group, click on your location in the map below!
• Want to learn how help your Local Group become better?

• Building a Local Group
• Database Usage Guidelines
• Packing Meetings
• Speaking Guidelines

• See some success stories in Real Activism.
• Find out about events at our Calendar of Events
• Discuss other outreach activities in our Local Group forums.
• Read the Local Groups Coordinator's Blog, make comments and give feedback.
• Of course you can always just E-mail the Local Groups Coordinator.

Region	Porcupine Group	Contact	Email List	FSP Forum	Meeting(s) <!-- ****************************************************************** -->
Northeast	New England (ME VT) (For NH, click here)	Rich Tomasso	Yahoo	Forum
	Mass & RI	Jon Maltz	Yahoo	Forum
	Connecticut	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum	<!-- Fri 1/21 7pm at Molten Java Coffee Roasters in Bethel, CT. Details. -->
	Tristate (NYC NJ PA CT-suburbs)	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum
	Central NY	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum
	Western NY (Buffalo-Niagara-Rochester)	Jason Sorens	Yahoo	Forum
	Western PA	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum	<!-- ****************************************************************** -->
Mid- Atlantic	Mid-Atlantic (DC DE MD se.PA s.NJ n.VA)	Phil Denisch	Yahoo	Forum	Usually the third Saturday of every month. See the FSP Forum for details.
	Appalachians (WV w.MD w.VA)	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum	Appalachians FSPers are more than welcome at the Mid-Atlantic meetings (above).
	Coastal VA & NC (se.VA ne.NC)	Bryan Stevenson	Yahoo	Forum	<!-- ****************************************************************** -->
South	Florida-all Florida-Suncoast	Tim Condon (Vacant*)	Yahoo Yahoo	Forum Forum	Regularly scheduled dinners in Tampa Bay.
	Georgia	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum
	Alabama (AL w.FL)	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum
	Arkansas	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum
	Tennessee	Keith Carlsen	Yahoo	Forum
	Bayou (LA MS)	(Vacant*)	Yahoo
	Carolinas (SC NC e.TN)	Chris Rasch	Yahoo	Forum	Third Saturday of every month at Chris' apartment in Raleigh, 2-4 pm. <!-- ****************************************************************** -->
Midwest	Minnesota	Steve Bottari	Yahoo	Forum	For more info see Meetup.com
	Wisconsin	Richard Whitnable	Yahoo	Forum
	Chicago- Milwaukee (s.WI n.IL ne.IN)	Tim Bauman & Vito Vitkauskas	Yahoo	Forum
	Midwest (MI n.OH ne.IN)	Jeremy Couch	Yahoo	Forum
	St. Louis (e.MO w.IL)	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum
	Bluegrass (KY s.OH s.IN se.IL)	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum	<!-- ****************************************************************** -->
Plains	Breadbasket (SD ND NE)	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum
	Kansas (KS w.MO)	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum
	Iowa	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum	<!-- ****************************************************************** -->
Mountain	Big Sky (MT ID WY)	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum
	Utah	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum
	Colorado	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum	<!-- ****************************************************************** -->
Southwest	Arizona	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum
	New Mexico	Amanda Odom Powell	Yahoo	Forum
	Oklahoma	Holland O. Van den Nieuwenhof	Yahoo	Forum
	North Texas U of TX - Dallas	James Strater (Vacant*)	Yahoo Yahoo	Forum
	South Texas	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum	<!-- ****************************************************************** -->
Pacific	Pacific NW (OR WA)	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum
	N. California	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum	Bay area local group meetings
	San Diego County	Andrew Del Vecchio	Yahoo	Forum	Irregular meetings, but periodic events with other libertarian orgs.
	Nevada	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum
	Hawaii	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum
	Alaska	(Vacant*)	Yahoo	Forum
Region	Porcupine Group	Contact	Email List	FSP Forum	Meeting(s)

* = No one has stepped forward to lead this group, but the email list has been created and is ready for use. If you would like to volunteer to be the local group leader, please contact the Local Group Coordinator. <!-- ********************************************** Map --><!-- LGstat: G=good, B=bad(no local coordinator) --> function chosen(LGstat,LGname){ window.status="Local Group Region "+LGname if (LGstat=="B") { var newwin = window.open("","Volunteer","height=270,width=400") var mailtoaction = "mailto:localgroups@FreeStateProject.org?subject=FSP-LG Coord: "+LGname var mailbody = "I would like more information about becoming a Local Group Coordinator for the "+LGname+" region.'" var wintxt = "Free State Project: Local Groups" wintxt += "