PacificPatriot

On Monday, July 14th 2009, the Liberty Township Tea Party held its first Tea Party at the Township Fire Station on State Route 747 in Liberty Township, OH. Four people had put their hands up and said yes we will help organize a Liberty Township Tea Party organization. This was the result of our first effort. None ouf us had ever worked together before, although three of us by complete coincidence lived on the same street in the same neighborhood. A school teacher, two engineerers and a project manager sat down at a kitchen table to figure out what you had to do to organize a community. No federal funding, no years of activism, no models to follow, just the combined experience of average American's that go to work everyday and get things done. So we had a Saturday morning meeting with the director of Community Ourtreach for the Cincinnati Tea Party and discussed the role of the community groups, got to understand the nature and limitations of the 527c Political organization, got a good understanding of our relationship to the Cincinnati group and learned what was envisioned of the Community groups by the Cincinnati group. With this informaiton in hand we had a follow-up meeting the next day, Sunday, in this meeting we developed the Agenda for our upcoming meeting on July 14th. We decided to keep it simple. To keep the meeting to one hour and to make sure that we followed that meeting up wih one in two weeks to keep the momentum flowing. Oup plan was pretty simple; Opening and introductions, Pledge, Community Group Purpose and Objectives, Featured Speaker, Issues and Discussion, Website and How Can You Help, Closing. We then worked on a flyer and sent out emails. We had an email list from the Cincinatii group. We even had flyers in a couple of neighborhoods. When it came time for the meeting we did not know what to expect. The Fire Chief had been very gracious. We had a room that held 25 to 30 comfortably but we could not tell him how many would acutally show so he said he would pull the engines out of the bay and if we had an overflow crowd we could move into the bay. How great is that? In a small room you don't need a P.A. system but in the bay we would so one of the group brought along a Karokee Unit just in case. We quickly filled up the small room and went to the back-up plan and moved to the bay. In the end we had 94 people show up to our first ever Liberty Township Tea Party! There was much excitement in the air. The people that came were there for a purpose, they wanted to be heard and they wanted to do something to register their disfavor for the direction of this country. They wanted to make a statement. We were very pleased and will have a larger venue for the next Tea Party and will begin the work of oganizing the neighborhoods at that meeting. We have much to do, there are issues on the table now that need to be addressed, phone calls to be made, letters to write, and rallies to attend. But there is also an organization to build if we are truly to make a difference in the long run. Was it not a former Secretary of Defense that said this is going to be a "Long Slog".