Sending In My Final Letter

A week ago, I had a webcam call with Amy, and she had some suggestions to make my letter even shorter for the 150 word maximum to submit to the Union Tribune. Well, I did it, and it's now submitted. Before tonight's meeting, I will also be calling up the local office of Susan Davis to learn the protocol for scheduling a meeting with her. I won't be actually scheduling it yet, but I will be learning how to do it. After tonight's webcam meeting, I will have a total of 15 volunteership hours.

3rd Meeting

I forgot to post this right after my last webcam call with Amy. We pretty much talked about my letter to Susan Davis, and how I could revise it to make it more friendly and concise. I worked on that this week. We also briefly talked about how to schedule a meeting with a congressperson.

National Conference Call

On Saturday, October 2nd, I went to a house near UCSD for a national conference call. When I finally found the place, I was greeted by a member of CCL named Rick, but to my surprise, no Amy. It went fine regardless. We talked about music, our reasons for joining CCL, and engineering for a while, and then the call began. Bill McKibben and the woman who is running the million letter march were the guest speakers. Bill talked about climate centered events going on around the world, including one in China, where a thousand mechanics went around fixing bikes so people couldn't have the excuse that their bike didn't work. He also talked about going straight for the political reform, not expecting social reform, political reform in return. The million letter march was also talked about. For this, CCL is asking that each of its members write a letter to a Congressperson about climate change and ask 5 or more friends to write one as well. At the end of the call, chapters from around the nation pledged how many letters they would be responsible for. Rick and I practiced this month's laser talk, which describes the million letter march, and then I left. Tonight, I wrote the first draft of my letter. I now have 9 volunteership hours.

Second Meeting

Last week, I put around 4 hours into my first assignment. On Tuesday, I had my second meeting with Amy. We talked a little about my report on my representatives and my research on carbon emissions. But mostly, she started filling me in on details for our first national webcam conference on Saturday. There, I'm going to practice my first laser talk. These are summaries of whatever issue they're covering at the time. Also, their organizations is planning this event called the million letter march. The idea is that our politicians will become inundated with letters about climate change. My letter is due next Tuesday. We also discussed what I'll be doing for my art piece. On October 8th, Citizens Climate Lobby will have a booth at a farmer's market. What I might be doing is creating a sign or banner for that. So far, I've dedicated 5 hours towards volunteership.

First Meeting

On Tuesday, I had a webcam interview with Amy Bennett of Citizen's Climate Lobby. My position there is now solidified. She didn't say exactly which issues CCL is working on, but she did send me a resource pack to become familiar with. For the eight weeks I'm interning with them, I'll have eight different assignments. My first is to research on California's two senate members and my local representative. I then have to compile a page or two on each's stance when it comes to environmental reform. Throughout the eight weeks, I'll also learn how to schedule an appointment with a congressman and practice "laser talk." I'll elaborate more on that as time passes. I'll be turning in my first assignment and having another webcam chat next Tuesday.

Volunteership Developments

I got the ball rolling a little late, but I am now on way to obtaining a volunteership. The organization I'm currently hoping for is Voice of San Diego, a local source for politics, news, and other interesting articles. Today, I drafted up an email to be reviewed by Eli before I send it off to Grant Barrett, my contact. I hope this works out, since the organization is close to home and school. In general, it seems like it would be a good place for me.

First Post!

This is my 12th grade government class blog. Keep an eye out for lots of posts to come!