Join Rights & Democracy (RAD) for our Annual Membership Assembly and People Power Summit
Our annual daylong event features special guest speakers, workshops, community building, and FUN. This is RAD’s annual opportunity for members to vote on our c4 Board members and help plan our work for the coming year & building towards 2020!
RSVP in the form below after checking out our agenda and workshop descriptions – including our special guest speakers such as Rep. Ayanna Pressley and former Sen. Nina Turner, along with RAD-endorsed elected officials from Vermont and New Hampshire.
Pressley recently announced she is endorsing Sen. Elizabeth Warren for president while Turner is a surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders and co-chairwoman of his national campaign. After hearing from Pressley and Turner, RAD will announce who its members are endorsing in the Democratic primary for president.
If you would like to attend, but have child care, interpretation, or other accessibility needs please contact Dan Fingas at dan@radvt.org at least 5 business days in advance of the event.
DATE, TIME & LOCATION: This year’s Assembly & Summit will be held on November 16 from 9am – 5pm at the School for International Training, Kipling Road, Brattleboro.
AGENDA*
9:00-9:30 AM – Registration
9:30-10:15 AM – Welcome & Review of 2019
10:15-11:30 AM – Workshops Round 1 (see descriptions below)
11:30-12:15 PM – Lunch
12:15-1:00 PM – Membership Assembly: board & bylaws vote, fundraising/financial report & Looking Ahead to 2020
1:00-1:25 PM – Keynote: Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley – On Building a Unified Movement For Structural Change
1-25:1:30 PM – Group photo!
1:30-2:00 PM – Keynote: Former Senator Nina Turner
2:00-2:30 PM – RAD Presidential Endorsement announcement & Next Steps
2:30-3:45 PM – Workshops Round 2 (see descriptions below)
3:45-4:45 PM – Plenary: Movement Politics Q&A with VT Senate Majority Leader Becca Balint & NH State Rep. Tim Smith
4:45-5:00 PM – Closing
5:00 – 6:00 PM – Clean up
* this is a tentative agenda and is subject to change (and likely will!)
MORNING WORKSHOPS
Nonviolence in Action: People-Powered Social Movements
Facilitator: Arnie Alpert (Co-Director of the American Friends Service Committee’s NH Program)
Nonviolence is more than just not being violent. Nor is it about avoiding conflict. It’s an active approach to challenging injustice, lifting up human rights, and reducing militarism. Significant social change rarely starts with elections or legislation. Often, it takes campaigns involving nonviolent direct action, including mass civil disobedience, to force the political system to respond to people clamoring for more democracy, protection of human rights, economic justice, and a more peaceful world. Arnie Arnie has been leading workshops on the philosophy and methods of nonviolent action for more than 40 years.
Collective Liberation 101: Building Our Movement Beyond Identity Politics
Facilitators: Chloe LeCasse (RAD NH member, consultant for Freedom for All Americans), Kate Logan (RAD Director of Programming and Policy), Alissandra Rodríguez-Murray (RAD NH Regional Organizer)
Special Guests: Miz Schultz and Shawn Pratt (RAD VT members and racial justice community leaders)
In order to be effective and powerful, our movement needs to be inclusive and supportive of those who have historically been the most marginalized. This workshop will help RAD members to understand the different ways that we each experience oppression. These differences have been used as a wedge to divide us and prevent us from building a mass movement that is united to fight for our collective liberation. Participants in this workshop will gain:
- An introduction to the term “intersectionality,” how we experience oppression and injustice differently, and what’s holding our movement back
- Knowledge about structural racism, sexism, and gender discrimination in the U.S.
- Tools for learning how to better hear and believe the experiences of those who are different from us, make right what has been done wrong, and to stand in solidarity with each other across those differences
Tech Tools for Organizing: Building the Movement Everywhere, From Wherever You Are
Facilitators: Ali Brokenshire (RAD NH Regional Organizer), Liz Filskov (RAD VT Regional Organizer), Randall Webster (Data Manager, America Votes – New Hampshire)
Please bring your smartphone, tablet, or laptop to this workshop!
This workshop will equip RAD members with the tech tools that they need to organize anywhere, at any time. Many of the digital tools that we use at RAD are similar to those that the Sanders campaign developed for their “distributed organizing” model in 2016. His campaign is — and now virtually all other campaigns are — using those same tools again to make sure that campaign volunteers can plug into the campaign from anywhere. RAD uses these tools for both our issue and voter engagement campaigns, as well as for turning folks out to our awesome community events and trainings. Workshop attendees will get an introduction to virtual phonebanking, digital relational organizing (Organizing Empowerment app), textbanking (Hustle app), our digital canvassing app (MiniVAN), and using digital tools like Doodle and Google Calendar to schedule meetings with fellow movement builders and the folks who you’re organizing!
Recharging in the Revolution: Sharing Wellness Tools for the Fight!
Facilitators: Hilary Viens, Operations Director, Rights & Democracy Project
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” -Audre Lorde. This workshop will focus on sharing wellness tools, placing self-care at the core of our activism and understanding self-care as a collective goal.
Organizing 101: Building Power in the Rural Northeast
Facilitators: Isaac Grimm (Organizing Director, Rights & Democracy NH), Heather Stockwell (Grassroots Organizer, Rights & Democracy NH), Sam Finkelstein (People’s Action)
Organizing is not easy, especially in a rural community, but it’s something we are all capable of doing, and doing in a way that builds true, lasting power. This training will help members build the skills to organize more effectively around the issues facing our communities. We will dig in on skills from relationship building to event & action organizing, fundraising, and more. Join us and build the necessary skills to grow the local movement for the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, fair Public Education Funding, Livable Wages and a more inclusive Granite State.
AFTERNOON WORKSHOPS
Winning with Words: Your Voice, Our Values
Facilitators: Shay Totten (Communications Director, Rights & Democracy Project), Fronsy Thurman, (Digital Engagement Coordinator, Rights & Democracy Vermont)
By being careful and strategic about the language we use when talking about ourselves, or the issues that inspire us, we can have a greater impact on making change. How? It all starts with placing our values at the core of every message we share – in social media, in public meetings, and with friends, family, and neighbors. This workshop will help you find ways to communicate our shared values with your voice with the goal of bridging political divides and creating lasting change. You’ll also learn about what words and phrases we try to avoid as they only serve to reinforce the systems of oppression that we are fighting to undo. We’ll provide you with a pen (or pencil) and paper – you provide the inspiring story.
Collective Liberation 101: Building Our Movement Beyond Identity Politics
Facilitators: Chloe LaCasse (RAD NH member, consultant for Freedom for All Americans), Kate Logan (RAD Director of Programming and Policy), Alissandra Rodríguez-Murray (RAD NH Regional Organizer)
Special Guests: Miz Schulz and Shawn Pratt (RAD VT members and racial justice community leaders)
In order to be effective and powerful, our movement needs to be inclusive and supportive of those who have historically been the most marginalized. This workshop will help RAD members to understand the different ways that we each experience oppression. These differences have been used as a wedge to divide us and prevent us from building a mass movement that is united to fight for our collective liberation. Participants in this workshop will gain:
- An introduction to the term “intersectionality,” how we experience oppression and injustice differently, and what’s holding our movement back
- Knowledge about structural racism, sexism, and gender discrimination in the U.S.
- Tools for learning how to better hear and believe the experiences of those who are different from us, make right what has been done wrong, and to stand in solidarity with each other across those differences
Tech Tools for Organizing: Building the Movement Everywhere, From Wherever You Are
Facilitators: Ali Brokenshire (RAD NH Regional Organizer), Liz Filskov (RAD VT Regional Organizer), Randall Webster (Data Manager, America Votes – New Hampshire)
Please bring your smartphone, tablet, or laptop to this workshop!
This workshop will equip RAD members with the tech tools that they need to organize anywhere, at any time. Many of the digital tools that we use at RAD are similar to those that the Sanders campaign developed for their “distributed organizing” model in 2016. His campaign is — and now virtually all other campaigns are — using those same tools again to make sure that campaign volunteers can plug into the campaign from anywhere. RAD uses these tools for both our issue and voter engagement campaigns, as well as for turning folks out to our awesome community events and trainings. Workshop attendees will get an introduction to virtual phonebanking, digital relational organizing (Organizing Empowerment app), textbanking (Hustle app), our digital canvassing app (MiniVAN), and using digital tools like Doodle and Google Calendar to schedule meetings with fellow movement builders and the folks who you’re organizing!
Recharging in the Revolution: Sharing Wellness Tools for the Fight!
Facilitators: Hilary Viens, Operations Director, Rights & Democracy Project
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” -Audre Lorde. This workshop will focus on sharing wellness tools, placing self-care at the core of our activism and understanding self-care as a collective goal.
Organizing 101: Building Power in the Rural Northeast
Facilitators: Isaac Grimm (Organizing Director, Rights & Democracy NH), Heather Stockwell (Grassroots Organizer, Rights & Democracy NH), Sam Finkelstein (People’s Action)
Organizing is not easy, especially in a rural community, but it’s something we are all capable of doing, and doing in a way that builds true, lasting power. This training will help members build the skills to organize more effectively around the issues facing our communities. We will dig in on skills from relationship building to event & action organizing, fundraising, and more. Join us and build the necessary skills to grow the local movement for the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, fair Public Education Funding, Livable Wages and a more inclusive Granite State.