1st Michigan Tea Party Alliance
"The Grassroots of the Great Lakes!"
Along with the suggestions from www.taxdayteaparty.com, you should also make sure that your group is registered with www.teapartypatriots.org. These are 2 of the major search engines that most average people will be using to find a Tea Party in their area.
You need to plan your event ahead of time. make sure that you have any permits and permissions that are necessary in your town to make sure that you are in full compliance with the law.
Next, you need to decide who will be speaking at your event. If you will be in a large group, you will probably need a sound system. It doesnt take a large system to get enough sound so that all can hear.
Once you who will be speaking and the format, you will need to publicize your event. There are some very simple tools that work really well. Facebook is a great way to let folks know about your event. With Facebook you can list your event to friends, time and date and people will know exactly what and where it is. Twitter is another good way to notify people. Both of these services are free and take only a little technical know how.
Click the link on below for some suggestions from the Mackinac Center
TIPS: How to get help from existing organizations
SIGNS: This is a GREAT SITE to print up free signs
This is a basic guide for establishing, promoting and implementing your Tax Day Tea Party. If you see changes that need to be made, contact us and let us know what need to be edited.
Step 1: Avoid Duplicating Efforts - Check to see if someone else has already started planning a Tea Party in your city.
This is a problem we ran into for Chicago. A small group had been planning on meeting earlier in the morning and for a slightly different type of rally, but we didn’t catch it before setting ours up. We’re now hoping we can combine the two events on April 15th, so hopefully it will all work out.
Here at TaxDayTeaParty.com we have a page with a full list of known Tea Party events for April 15th. You can check that page to ensure there isn’t already an event happening in your city/town.
You’ll also want to search Facebook “Tax Day Tea Party” or “April 15 Tea Party”, along with the name of your city/town, to see if an event has already been set up.
If nothing has been set up, then someone needs to get the ball rolling. And since you’re reading this… it sounds like that someone might be you
Step 2: Coordinate - Send an email to amykremer@gmail.com letting her know you wish to set up a local Tea Party in your city.
Amy will work with you and help you get your Facebook Event page set up. You can do this on your own, of course, but it’s easier for us to make sure we’re not duplicating efforts if we’re all collaborating with our actions.
Once your Facebook Event page is set up, you need to start working on the details of your Tea Party (What, when, where, what time, how, etc…)
Step 3: Pick a Location - Now it’s time to ponder on various locations. Ask yourself “Where is the best place to host a Tea Party? In front of the Federal Reserve Bank? In a park? Where will you get the most attention? Where have protests been held in the past? Where was the February Tea Party held?”.
It’s also important that you check with your city/town to see if a “Demonstration Permit” is required to protest at a public property (I know… what about free speech?). We got around this here in Chicago by staying on sidewalks and marching through town instead of being stationary in a park or plaza.
Once you’ve gone through all the options, checked out what you think is the best location and found it to be feasable and confirmed it has enough space to contain a big crowd, go ahead and put it in your Facebook event page.
Send out an announcement to your members letting them know and begin putting together an email list of everyone you know so you can inform them as well.
Step 4: Prepare Media Campaign - Open up a plain text document on your computer. Now go to EVERY newspaper, TV and radio website in your city/town and hunt for phone numbers, fax numbers and emails. Build a list of each, and plan to contact each outlet through all three methods. You’ll likely need help with this if you’re in a large city, so get with some of the people coming to your Tea Party to help out if need be.
Draft a press release announcing your planned Tea Party. We have press release templates you can use if you do not know how to write one (coming soon.)
Send your press release out (make sure you have PLENTY of contact information on it. You can put our Press Secretary, Julie Johnson, on the release if you’re not comfortable speaking with the media)
When do I send the press release out?The day, specifically, can vary. But usually you’ll want to send it on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. You’ll also want to do at least three press releases total… one the day you announce your plans, one as the event draws closer, and the last one the day before the event.
Getting Started on the Web: Her are some of the more inexpensive ways to get a website up and running. You dont need to have a great big dot.com if you arent ready. Just a place to put information up so that people can know about your events. Here are some good sites for beginning sites.
www.blogger.com - This site uses google. Can easlily use features from gmail to google calendar.
officelive.com - This site requires registering with microsoft, but you get all of the microsoft office tools. Also has the ability to upgrade to a full .com
www.ning.com - This has been the choice of many partiot groups. Easy set up and a variety of pay plans
https://sites.google.com - Provides a free site with google comminications tools.
www.mailchimp.com - A great group email for groups. Great tools for how folks are viewing emails. You can list up to 500 for free and up to 3000 emails for free in a 30 day time period. Can pay to upgrade plan as needed
Yahoo Group Mail - This is a free service from yahoo. You can set up group email for your group. Very easy to use.