From Jon Walker:
The 30th annual Greek Festival was continually threatened by rain, but for the most part, the weather was wonderful. A few stalwart LP members showed up to help educate the public with The Worlds Smallest Political Quiz. Thanks go to the volunteers who showed up to pass out the WSPQ: Leonard Harris, Roy Scherer, and Jon Walker. It was a productive time as we met some new libertarian faces and introduced a number of people to the concept of the Nolan Chart. As always, the Patrick Henry Supper Club was mentioned along with local LP groups in the area.
The best area to work was the corner of Malvern and Grove next to the Seventh Street Church.
The corner is sunny and hot while farther down the street there is plenty of shade. However, the corner turned out to be the prime location. By the time people got to the third campaign worker, they were starting to tune them out. Additionally, the grassy area between the street and sidewalk is wide and this natural choke point provides the best area for spreading the word. Working other corners provided, for the most part, fruitless, because until people perceive that they are on the festival grounds, they don’t want to stop.
Leonard was instrumental in helping educate one of the deputies from the Sherriff's office to the finer points of Virginia's open carry law. The deputy, I am happy to say, acted in a very professional and pleasant manner and was quick to admit his error after consulting with the Commonwealth Attorney's office. Another interesting thing that occurred Saturday was that an independent candidate was there with a video crew making a documentary and spent time with the Libertarians taking the quiz and briefly discussing politics (he was a centrist).
As usual, grass roots activity is a numbers game and the more people you talk to, the more likely you are to find someone. One or two people at a time were easiest to connect with and out of the people who stopped to take the test, there were 5 true libertarians who were willing to give us enough information to contact them later and a few more that promised to contact us on their own. It is this writer’s opinion that wearing something that would identify the volunteers as libertarians is vital. Too many times there would be someone from one of the other parties standing near us with a campaign shirt and people would think we were working with them.
For next year, it will be helpful to remember there is about nine feet between the sidewalk and the street and that a small 8 foot canopy and a cooler could really help the volunteers. Also, by observing the other campaigns, some lessons were learned. If you have someone standing along the sidewalk asking people to stop for something, the maximum amount of time that person should work is 2 hours and then have them take a 2 hour break before coming back for another shift. This allows you to get 4 hours out of someone and keep them alert and working. Many of the candidate campaign volunteers showed up at 11 am and stayed the entire day. By 4pm most of them were too tired to approach people! They literally let hundreds of people go by because they were too tired.
The next big opportunity for outreach, in the city of Richmond, will be the Cartytown Watermelon Festival on August 13. If you are interested in helping, please contact Jon at jwalker@RichmondLP.com or 804-306-4106.
The event also made VA-ALERT:
EM Leonard Harris was working a Libertarian Party booth on a public sidewalk just outside of the Greek Festival in Richmond last week. He was approached by a deputy who said Leonard could not carry his gun there.
Leonard explained the law to him and the deputy went off to call the Commonwealth Attorney about the situation. He returned about 10 minutes later to acknowledge that Leonard was within his rights to be open carrying
on that sidewalk.
New motto: "VCDL - educating Richmond Deputies, one Deputy at a time" ;-)
Finally we have some photo highlights:
http://www.richmondliberty.org/events/photos/20060603