Suzan's President's Message, January 2019

Suzan's President's Message, January 2019

Type: 
Blog Post

Welcome to our new year  -- 2019  -- and preparation for the 2020 Presidential election year and the 10-year Census that will follow.

We have learned a lot from our growing membership and pre-election and election day activity.  You are invited and encouraged to attend our January 12 election review to learn the impact of our success. (More in Calendar listing).

We are launching our 2019 Strategic Planning & Program Planning work, designing what we will do to help define community action, build community solutions and continue to build the network with other non-profits and grass roots voter support. 

Our 2nd Strategic Planning session will focus on:

  •  Creating a proposed Schools/Students Education Team to assess current Voter Registration and Civics Education within school districts and focus on building school civics ed programs in schools where needed.  Watch for emails for more information on this Schools/Students team to participate in this effort.
  • Building grass roots connections through our proposed Observer/Action Team for cities, Contra Costa County, special districts and school districts.  There are so many communication methods that have made this an easier and strategically interesting process.  It can be an ideal method for assessing the effectiveness of our elected leaders and creating a sustainable advocacy relationship with them, for generating LWVDV advocacy to help promote effective community solutions and for providing background information to voters in advance of ballot measures generated at the local levels.  Watch for emails from this proposed Observer/Action team to participate in this effort.
  • Working on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). LWV is an organization fully committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in principle and in practice. This national LWV priority for all leagues will be described at the LWV Bay Area’s League Day in San Francisco on February 9th. [More details below]. We recommend this training for our membership AND non-profits wanting to broaden their community participation and gain an understanding of how to be successful in this critical effort to grow membership while strengthen our democratic processes.
  • Preparing for our February 23rd Program Planning session to identify LWVDV focus priorities for the next year.  In terms of LWVDV effectiveness, this is one of the most critical processes of the organization not specific to election processes.  Last year we decided to focus on Immigration, Affordable Housing, Health Care ( a LWV CA priority) and additionally Gun Sense Legislation.  We will be providing an opportunity to maintain or change direction on program priorities for the year.  Watch for further information on this session and save the date –Saturday, February 23rd.

New members and all members please feel invited and, by design, comfortably included in the continuing adventures of effective community building activities.  We are looking forward to your participation as we work toward making a meaningful difference through these transforming public policy activities.

Yours in League,

Suzan Requa

League to which this content belongs: 
Diablo Valley