On this page:
Development of the Task Areas
As one of the first action projects of the Issues Committee (also variously referred to as the Policy Issues Committee, Political Issues Committee, and Legislative Issues Committee) we launched a series of discussions on the book, What We Do Now. To date seven groups have discussed it. An eighth group had to re-schedule its session. A total of eighty participated in these sessions. Based upon results coming out of these sessions, we decided to hold a combined meeting of the participants so we could compare findings and develop specific actions to pursue.
From that meeting has evolved a continuing task force, now known as 3rd Monday Democrats: It meets on the third Monday of each month when the Democratic Club of Hot Springs Village does NOT hold one of its quarterly meetings.
[NOTE: 3rd Monday Democrats has subsequently evolved into the Democratic Action Forum, which continues to meet on the third Monday of each month, but as a separate organization of the club under its own officers instead of simply being a work group under the direction of the Legislative Issues Committee, which has been dissolved. Thus, the organizational structure has changed, but the activities continue.]
Common issues identified:
1)
We must be more active in getting ourselves and our view points in
front of the public and our representatives.
2)
We need to find out more about how local government works in Arkansas.
3)
We should develop a book (information) exchange.
4)
We should get more involved in the voting process.
5)
We should develop a "talking points" manual.
6)
We should have work groups ("task forces") to accomplish these actions.
7)
We should meet monthly to accomplish these actions.
8)
We should have a "truth squad" to counter
deceptions eg. we have a “Liberal Media.”
Based upon those issues, we organized into
three action groups--"Task Forces":
Communications
Support Worthy Candidates
Honest & Fair Elections
Communications currently involve five major channels:
Monthly newsletter
Letters to editors of local and area papers:
The Village Voice
The Hot Springs Sentinel-Record
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
The Arkansas Times
Letters to state and national legislators
Telephone and e-mail messages to legislators
E-mail circulated among the club members and other interested
parties
Democratic Club of Hot Springs Village Web site
Task Group projects:
Develop a list of issues to address
Letters to editors
Letters to elected officials
Publicize our activities
Increase our information base
Discover our individual and collective talents to accomplish
these projects
Voting currently involves five major areas of concern and
emphasis:
Promote voter registration
Registering new voters, including canvassing the Village for
new voters
Poll-worker and poll-watcher enlistment and training
Transportation to the polls
Integrity in vote counting--the electronic voting machine,
no-paper-trail, situation
Support of worthy candidates:
Provide forums for candidates to present their views
Work on campaigns
Provide financial support
Identify weak candidates
We are inviting candidates to speak at Oktoberfest.
We are inviting candidates to send us personal profiles and position statements which we will post.