Georgians for the FairTax - Meetings by Congressional District

Congressional District 8 - Jan. 7, 2006 Meeting

March 4, 2006
Called to order at 9:00 AM
Meeting notes by: Angela Bean

Attending:
Angela Bean
Vick Vickery
Gene Key
Arnie Geiger
Rod Burnette
Jim Burnette
Sherill Sisco

The meeting started with good news: District 8 membership is the largest growth in the state for the first two months of the year with a 16% increase in membership! Great job! Find an update of the numbers here.

Vick shared a copy of a newspaper interview he did with the Newnan Times paper. The Newnan-Times has agreed to run the weekly columns as soon as we have them ready! Sherrill shared that she has a contact with the Henry County Paper and will pursue getting them to run the columns. Rod will contact The Fayette Citizen. We hope to have the first articles in the next week or so.

Carolyn Walter couldn't be with us but her daughter reported she has a possible group presentation with a ReMax office of realtors in April. The Douglasville Library is available to our group at no charge for meetings or presentations.

Vick reported his findings on having a booth at the Cotton Pickin' Fair. It is too late for May, but we may still be able to apply for the Oct. weekend if we decide to do so. The Powers Crossroads in September has an Aug. 1 deadline. Vick will check on the possibility that they would accept our application for a FairTax booth.

Vick printed out contact info for the various Toastmasters groups in our district. Sherril, Arnie and Rod will contact some of the groups to encourage their speakers to use the FairTax as a topic.

Arnie shared that he contacted Isakson again and we all agreed that we need to keep contacting our Georgia reps who haven't signed on to the bill. Arnie attended the Westmoreland Townhall meeting. He said the crowd at the meeting was very enthusiastic to the FairTax when it was discussed.

Rod is heading up the Peachtree City July 4 parade. He has agreed to "camp out" in the registration line on June 1. Being able to have a golf cart or float in the parade is a "first come/first served" event. We will want to have many volunteers walking along the parade route with the cart/float to hand out information and get petitions signed. So, reserve this date for yourself and your family. The PTC parade is always a lot of fun to attend.

Rod is also going to head up getting us a booth at the Peachtree City Air Show October 14-15. This event draws thousands from all over the region. Mark this date... we will be scheduling shifts to work our booth and will need lots of volunteers.

Rod is trying to contact the local Kroger in PTC to get permission for us to set up a table to pass out FairTax info and get petitions signed.

We discussed the importance of all of us talking to people about the various groups and organizations they belong to. We have a large roster of FairTax speakers who are looking for opportunities to give a presentation. This could be a business, PTA, church organization, community groups, etc. If any of our members have a lead on a presentation you are encouraged to contact Donna Patterson who heads up the bureau matching speakers to events.

The next meeting is scheduled for April 1, 9:00 AM at Liberty Baptist Church. Please continue to check the GaFairTax.org website for continuous updates on events and meetings.

Lots going on in Georgia with the FairTax! We hope to see you at the next meeting and bring a friend!

Called to order at 9:00 AM
Meeting notes by: Bob Lech

New marketing materials distributed- bumper stickers, Fair Tax summary
cards, name tags, generic posters, etc. These items can be found to download and print from the Georgia FairTax website.

A FairTax story in The Fayette Daily News (Friday, Jan. 6) was shown and discussed.
This article will be used to encourage other local papers to give the FairTax similar coverage. Members volunteered to contact their local editors: Janet Hudak-Henry County; Vic-Coweta; Debbi DuBois-Douglasville; Carolyn Christensen-Fayetteville. Angela will contact Houston HQ to see if they have a generic newspaper story that we can send to local papers.

Upcoming Town Hall Meetings (click here for dates) hosted by Lynn Westmoreland will be attended by: Janet Hudak-Henry County; Bob and Vic-Fayetteville; Vic-Carroll county. All FairTax supporters are encouraged to attend if possible.

Networking - each member will talk to two people outside Georgia about the FairTax and encourage them to sign the online petition and to become active in their communities and to start by sending letters to their political representatives. Also, we will ask those two people to do the same with two more people, and then those two to tell two more people and encourage active volunteerism. The group will chart as to where the networking web progresses all during 2006.

Each member is asked to bring in or make copies of two new signed petitions/pledges for new FairTax volunteers in Georgia, and will encourage the signers to become active volunteers.

A list of FairTax supporters in Congressional District 8 was distributed to each member present. Members will contact and ask them to become active in promoting the FairTax. We will invite them to membership meetings and ask that they send a letter to elected representatives, print and pass out FairTax information, encourage their friends and family to sign the petition, etc.

Members were asked to research Post Office locations that will be opened late on April 15, 2006 in order to have FairTax supporters there to pass out information with the hopes of having news coverage. Members with Post Office contacts were asked to check with the contacts to see how we can gain permission to have a presence.

Speakers Bureau - The Speaker's Bureau has a list of volunteers willing to speak to groups. The Bureau is now seeking groups and organizations to send our speakers to. Members were asked to contact local groups for the opportunity to have a speaker present the FairTax. Bob volunteered to contact Tyrone Rotary and ABWA Peachtree City. We will pass on to Donna that Toastmasters is a valuable resource for growing the Speakers Bureau.

Q & A: discussed imbedded tax; 15% tax bracket; how to answer objections.

NEW BUSINESS: the next meeting is to start out with Janet Hudak
discussing "How to grow our CD-08 membership for our statewide membership challenge." Angela will share information learned from attending a January 27 Eastern Region meeting in Florida.

Meeting adjourned at 10:00 am

Next Meeting: March 4, 9:00 am, Liberty Baptist Church, Riverdale click here for details