Central Kentucky Branch, Fayette County

Fayette County has a busy, thriving Network chapter with new members enrolling weekly and an encouraging number of ongoing membership renewals. At the present time there are 181 members enrolled in the Fayette chapter. They meet the third Thursday of every month, which provides opportunity for new members to get involved quickly and for members to invite friends and acquaintances to attend.

The Chapter officers are Ann Garrity, chair; Diane Clewett, vice chair for programs, Betty Gabehart, secretary; and Ruth Straus, treasurer. The Executive Committee includes the officers, Task Force Co-chairs, Membership Coordinator and additional "advisors" as needed. Most of the work of the Chapter currently is based in three task forces, with two of them joined together at this time to manage a seamless major initiative. That is the Task Force for New Democrats and Task Force For Democratic Future. The Task Force For Media and Public Disclosure is the other major task force.

Below is a report from Ann Garrity on the Task Forces and programs of the Fayette county chapter:

I. Task Force for New Democrats and a Democratic Future
Co-chaired by Carolyn Holmes, Betty Gabehart, and Esther Webb. As we gear up for the 2006 election and considering how we might influence the outcome, this Task Force has decided our greatest contribution would be to motivate more precincts in our county to action, i.e., to motivate more Democrats at the grass roots to join in the effort. We would do this by working closely with the precinct leadership where it exists or by helping to fill precinct vacancies where no leaders have been elected. There are many such voids.

There are many actions we will take, such as registering voters, helping to rally Democrats through neighborhood "talk-ups" (a version of neighborhood" coffees" popular in the past) that will encourage conversation by participants leading to understanding of what the Democratic Party offers them, and where we may also introduce candidates to voters, listen to voters concerns, and contribute to voter education.

(By way of history, in the last special election The Task Force registered 1650 new voters—almost all Democrats-- and made thousands of effective telephone calls during the Get Out The Vote phase.)

The Chapter recently sponsored an evening Training Session on Monday, July 25th with 50 people attending. Represented were members of The Women’s Network, Change for Kentucky, and the LUV Campaign, our local water referendum for local ownership. It was titled "How to Energize Precincts" and was taught by Jane Jensen, cofounder of Change for Kentucky who is, also, an elected member of the Fayette County Democratic Executive Committee. We studied the process for electing precinct and district Party officials; the duties of precinct captains; the role of volunteers at the precinct level; and how to read and correct voter registration lists. A number of participants took home voter lists for their precincts and intend to begin going door-to-door to update them. The next steps in this unfolding process will be determined in the next couple of weeks.

Possibilities include training conducted by WN members in precincts we walked last summer, as well as training at our next General Meeting.

II. The Task Force for Media and Public Discourse
CO-chaired by Donna Moore Campbell, Deborah Givens, and Mary Fran Soulis. We have three areas of focus.

1. Media Reform
   Mary Fran, Deborah, and Ann Garrity attended the National Conference on Media Reform in St. Louis May 12-15 and learned volumes about the state of media in our country and how we can fight back. Their report follows:
   "We were inspired by the large turnout of young people (50% of the 2000 registrants) and their strong reliance on alternative news sources, mainly the Internet but also low-power radio and community cable programming. I am proud to say that The Network sponsored 5 UK journalism students to attend the conference. One was sponsored from dues; the other four from private gifts by members of The Women’s Network. We learned about grassroots efforts underway in Louisville and, probably most important, that the Telecommunications Act is due for rewrite in 2006 and will be the target of lobbying by media conglomerate to eliminate requirements for public interest components which are in place in the current act. Common Cause plans to spearhead a national grassroots citizens campaign which the Network will want to support by hosting local meetings. Mary Fran returned from this conference with an interest in regulations affecting public television, cable, radio, and the role of the FCC and is keeping us informed and primed for action."
   
   
2. Helen Thomas Writers
   Deborah Givens helped organize a group of Network members who meet biweekly to draft and submit letters to the editor of the local paper and other publications. We call ourselves the Helen Thomas Writers in honor of this gritty Kentucky journalist and invite you to do the same. We have found that the collaboration improves the content, motivates us to write, and allows for the venting of our frustrations and worries about the current state of the nation. We have had three letters that were written jointly (signed by one person) published to date. Recently two additional independent letters were published by Network members. Other Chapter members have expressed an interest.
   
   
3. The Radio Monitoring Project
   Although a more balanced public discourse is needed at the national and local levels on television and radio, we quickly realized we needed to undertake an attainable goal and as an added benefit, possibly create a model that could be replicated by other chapters.
   Thus, Donna Moore Campbell is helping to launch a project to analyze local talk radio stations for fair and balanced discussion. The Task Force met recently to review the proposal the three co-chairs have put together. We want to be as systematic and thorough as possible so that our findings will have credibility.