What to do with $450

[FriedChicken]

Hello everyone.

If you'll look to your left you'll see I haven't been around this board long. So I'm not up to date on all that much.

I don't have much money and when I do have money there is no shortage of things to spend it on. My wife and I have a child, are saving to buy land for a farm, etc. Money is very valuable.

I'm selling one of my rifles to get $450 to donate. I initially thought I would just donate it all to the money bomb on May 5th.
I want the money to get the best use possible, I won't be able to give much more than this.

Please offer opinions and bring to my attention other places to spend the money as well and maybe spread it a little further- for example, are there efforts in place to promote the money bomb that are needing chip-ins? Maybe some of the money could go there so it would ultimately bring in more money on debate day.

I also know the Iowa poll is important. Should some of the money go towards that or will the funds from the bomb cover it plus catch some press on the way?

I always make sure my money is spent as wisely as I know how, but now there isn't all that much time for me to figure it out by myself so I'd like some help from people who have been here longer than I.

Thank you.
-Travis

[Razmear]

Your $450 might do more good locally spreading awareness. Cash spent locally goes further than donated cash in the long run. You can make a lot of signs for $100.

[FriedChicken]

I see what you're saying.
I have event promotion and planning experience, $25k worth of sound equipment, a little bit of screen-print experience & graphic design experience and am willing to work. I could donate $50 to the bomb for press reasons and use the $400 left over for getting some local action started.

Local action suggestions anyone?
I'd hate to put all the money into one basket, especially if it was something that didn't have any revenue potential to keep the action[s] growing.

I'm best at organizing and promoting events. However I'm drawing a blank as to what to organize short of having Ron Paul himself come here (which I'm 100% up to doing at a later time) are there other speakers I might bring here in the meantime? I don't know any bands that support Ron Paul as a group, but does anyone else know any in this area?
I know of the big people like Tom Woods, again I'm open to that, but money is an object there and I'd like to start smaller for now and build up.

[dbill27]

Buy a few copies of Ron's new book to hand out to friends and family. Can't go wrong with that. BTW, where at in Indiana?

[WilliamC]

Buy a few copies of Ron's new book to hand out to friends and family. Can't go wrong with that. BTW, where at in Indiana?

I like this idea, also maybe send copies to your local and State politicians, along with a personal letter from you.

[sailingaway]

I see what you're saying.
I have event promotion and planning experience, $25k worth of sound equipment, a little bit of screen-print experience & graphic design experience and am willing to work. I could donate $50 to the bomb for press reasons and use the $400 left over for getting some local action started.

Local action suggestions anyone?
I'd hate to put all the money into one basket, especially if it was something that didn't have any revenue potential to keep the action[s] growing.

I'm best at organizing and promoting events. However I'm drawing a blank as to what to organize short of having Ron Paul himself come here (which I'm 100% up to doing at a later time) are there other speakers I might bring here in the meantime? I don't know any bands that support Ron Paul as a group, but does anyone else know any in this area?
I know of the big people like Tom Woods, again I'm open to that, but money is an object there and I'd like to start smaller for now and build up.

There are materials for flyers, is Ron coming to your area? Is there a debate nearby? If so a pre event rally where people could gather and go together to the debate or whatever might be good, you could use the money for a permit (if needed) and flyers... that is the kind of thing where the money goes furthest. What area are you in? You might want to hook up with others in your area, because more workers can put on a better event....

I would NOT suggest having other speakers, unless maybe Rand starts campaigning for Ron. People tend to want to be specifically supporting Ron in some way. But you might want to save it, given your event planning experience, until the right moment. And start a chip in if necessary. People did Ronstock, Aimee Allen might do something, the time when events will be best will become apparent. It is just that the campaign hasn't started yet.

Here's Aimee Allen, she performed at the Rally for the Republic, and at the grassroots event the night before

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiKh9Ko3mw4

Here she was at the Revolution Nation (grassroots) event the night before the Rally for the Republic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w_yapm5II4

But don't be in a rush to spend it right away. Ron WILL come to Indiana or near you, or an important event or straw poll will be near you. What about YAL in your area? He is often going to colleges and you might be able to work with them, or around a visit to see them.

[ctiger2]

I don't have much money and when I do have money there is no shortage of things to spend it on. My wife and I have a child, are saving to buy land for a farm, etc. Money is very valuable.

I'd say you need the money more than Ron does. Keep it.

[Umbro2914]

I'd say you need the money more than Ron does. Keep it.
x2
12345

[Eric21ND]

I like the book idea. Give away copies of Ron's book and the For Liberty documentary DVD to friends, family, etc. We could even setup a chipin to help you get started on that. Buy 20 books and 20 DVDs and hand them out and gauge the response. You should also start or join a local meetup with fellow RP people.

[FriedChicken]

Evansville, IN. is where I live.
YAL doesn't seem to be too big around here last I checked. But I'll check again. There are two fairly big colleges in this town, USI and UofE as well as community colleges.
I don't go to college, don't know too many people who do right now. But I'll keep an eye out for a "man on the ground" college person to work with.
I've done a few google searches and found some local meetup groups, facebook groups ect. but they all seemed dead and I couldn't get a hold of their leaders.
I was very excited when I found this forum because I thought C4L was the only thing I could be plugged into ... and that has seemed more like a mailing list to me than something to get involved in. I literally sent messages to every member in my state (which took weeks to do) to only get a few replies back.

I'll look over meetup again though.

As far as "other speakers" go I was more thinking of having a free two hour seminar type event on specific issues like the Federal reserve, austrian economics, foreign policy or whatever seems to be the issue people are most ignorant/interested in around here (just one topic per event). Enlightening people on those topics, I thought, would go a long way in coming up with more support for him. Maybe distributing books and dvds is a better way to accomplish that though.
I'm fine with spending the money for this cause. This is the country I'm raising my daughter up in and I owe it to her to do what I can in this campaign now. If there is the slightest chance that Ron can be the next president then I'm obligated to be in this thing 100% of the way.

I'll re-check and see if Ron Paul is scheduled to come here again, I went to hear him speak in Bloomington a few months back. I'm a member of Indiana's campaign for liberty but they never notify me of things like that (I found out he was going to be in Bloomington only a week or so before the date). If there are existing events supporting Ron Paul around here and I know about them in advance I promote them as much as I can.

Is it possible to get a discounted price on large orders of his book?

[kah13176]

Thinking rather selfishly, I have little change to spare, and it would be nice to have a few RP 2012 buttons :P

[Eric21ND]

Amazon usually has the best price on books. I know the For Liberty DVD has been discounted. You should really start a paypal account and then start a chipin for your project, I'm sure we all could help you out and donate to the cause. I have some excellent videos that you should consider handing out. Send me a PM on here and I'll show you the videos I have in mind. You could put them all on a DVD or just a simple CD as files and hand them out to people very cheaply. Since you're looking for other RP supporters in your area I'd make a few dozen fliers and start a meetup yourself. Post them around all the colleges and other places. I had numerous conversations started by strangers simply seeing my Ron Paul sticker on my car. It would be nice to be able to give them a flier or little card so they can attend meetups or something in the future.

[sailingaway]

flyers to put under windshields works.

but I mentioned YAL because of your event planning experience. Colleges have people crowds draw Dr. Paul ( it takes x number of signatures and a hall or something) it is easier to sign up students, then you go into the regular community and try to get others (with flyers under windshields or whatever) to go to the event. Without a big group in meetup or otherwise, I was just trying to see what other groups you could go tandem with.

YAL does seem to be somewhat active there, here's an event they publicized at U of E in March, if I were you I'd track them or this forum for events: http://www.yaliberty.org/events/2011-02-23/seven-principles-of-sound-public-policy


On March 23 at 7 pm FEE president Lawrence W. Reed will deliver the “Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy” lecture at the “Pillars of a Free Economy” event, organized by Aces of Liberty at the University of Evansville, IN.

The event will be held in Room 170 of the Schroeder Family School of Business Administration Building.

that's past now, but it shows they do stuff and you might be able to get people interested in going to some of those, or start a meetup event to meet at one or something, so people have something to rally to.

There seems to be a 57 member YAL group at USI http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5987424906

But it looks like you have to join to go into their main page and as a non student I don't know if you can http://usi.campusreform.org/group/80/join

There seems to be at least a 7 person YAL chapter at U of I Bloomington http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=45278093041

Again, these guys may not be the ones it is easiest to meet with in a different stage of life but you could ask if they want to try to get Dr. Paul out and collect signatures, maybe working with other YAL chapters, or about events going on etc.

...Oh, looky here, the Libertarian Party of Illinois helpfully lists the YAL chapters here: http://lpin.org/contact/campus-organizations/

YAL is the one who brought Ron to Indiana in October last year...http://www.yaliberty.org/posts/dr-ron-paul-speaks-at-indiana-university-bloomington-on-monday-october-25and-he-can-speak-at-y

and you might pm tangent4ronpaul who kind of took over the meetup structure he could salvage from the last campaign, he's been asking people if anyone wants to baby sit some of them. I don't know if they are in your area but you could pay the $70 for three months or whatever, and try to resurrect one. I wasn't around that much in the last campaign, that is when I discovered RP existed, but tangent4ronpaul might be able to help you get in touch with some meet up people there who just don't want to be the laboring oar right now, but might be active if someone else took the primary role.

[FriedChicken]

Amazon usually has the best price on books. I know the For Liberty DVD has been discounted. You should really start a paypal account and then start a chipin for your project, I'm sure we all could help you out and donate to the cause. I have some excellent videos that you should consider handing out. Send me a PM on here and I'll show you the videos I have in mind. You could put them all on a DVD or just a simple CD as files and hand them out to people very cheaply. Since you're looking for other RP supporters in your area I'd make a few dozen fliers and start a meetup yourself. Post them around all the colleges and other places. I had numerous conversations started by strangers simply seeing my Ron Paul sticker on my car. It would be nice to be able to give them a flier or little card so they can attend meetups or something in the future.

Thank you.
I'll be PMing you shortly.

I've got some money to work with so far that will buy me about 20 or so books I'm guessing, was planning on donating it anyway so I don't mind giving it up. Lets see how well my idea floats before I ask others to invest in it. I also want to build more of a reputation for myself, through this project, so people can be confident about where they're sending their money (since I'm so new to these boards).

Thanks again. I plan on implementing/combining all your suggestions.

[hillbilly123069]

MRE's

[danda]

For sign-making howto's, check out freedomsphoenix. I remember watching this video back in 2007 and they got me pumped up.

http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Article/074651-2010-08-30-the-very-first-ron-paul-video.htm

[FriedChicken]

to make sure I reply to this entire post I'm inserting my replies inside of your quote in bold.


flyers to put under windshields works.

but I mentioned YAL because of your event planning experience. Colleges have people crowds draw Dr. Paul ( it takes x number of signatures and a hall or something) it is easier to sign up students, then you go into the regular community and try to get others (with flyers under windshields or whatever) to go to the event. Without a big group in meetup or otherwise, I was just trying to see what other groups you could go tandem with. excellent suggestion, thank you

YAL does seem to be somewhat active there, here's an event they publicized at U of E in March, if I were you I'd track them or this forum for events: http://www.yaliberty.org/events/2011-02-23/seven-principles-of-sound-public-policy
Never heard about this event ... would have helped promote and attend if I had known. One thing that needs to be worked on is the relationship between Indiana C4L and Indiana YAL because I would have expected an email about this through C4L.



that's past now, but it shows they do stuff and you might be able to get people interested in going to some of those, or start a meetup event to meet at one or something, so people have something to rally to.

There seems to be a 57 member YAL group at USI I've tried contacting them in the past and they never replied. Will try againhttp://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5987424906

But it looks like you have to join to go into their main page and as a non student I don't know if you can http://usi.campusreform.org/group/80/join

There seems to be at least a 7 person YAL chapter at U of I Bloomington http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=45278093041 I believe they were the ones who brought Paul in the time I went to see him

Again, these guys may not be the ones it is easiest to meet with in a different stage of life but you could ask if they want to try to get Dr. Paul out and collect signatures, maybe working with other YAL chapters, or about events going on etc. I'm 23 years old, so there isn't a lot of age difference. Culturally I'm probably a lot different than the average member of YAL but I get along with pretty much anyone. I think I could work with YAL very well, and have tried to in the past, but it "seems" like they're not interested in outsiders. (I'm sure once I get "in" with them things will be fine)

...Oh, looky here, the Libertarian Party of Illinois helpfully lists the YAL chapters here: http://lpin.org/contact/campus-organizations/ cool, I'll give this a look a little later, thanks for the find

YAL is the one who brought Ron to Indiana in October last year...http://www.yaliberty.org/posts/dr-ron-paul-speaks-at-indiana-university-bloomington-on-monday-october-25and-he-can-speak-at-y didn't seem that long ago, wow. Thats the one I said was a "few months back".

and you might pm tangent4ronpaul who kind of took over the meetup structure he could salvage from the last campaign, he's been asking people if anyone wants to baby sit some of them. I don't know if they are in your area but you could pay the $70 for three months or whatever, and try to resurrect one. I wasn't around that much in the last campaign, that is when I discovered RP existed, but tangent4ronpaul might be able to help you get in touch with some meet up people there who just don't want to be the laboring oar right now, but might be active if someone else took the primary role. managing one is something I'm open to but don't want to jump into just yet. If there are some in my area I'd love to get the contact info for the members though once I get some stuff going.

[FriedChicken]

hillbilly, I don't know what MRE's means. Help me out on that?
Danda, thats extremely helpful thank you. I was actually going to ask about that later on.


Here is a project I’ve thought a little about and could use some critiquing on …

Purchase about 20 of Ron Paul’s Liberty defined books. On the inside of all those books I will put my own personal forward, including basic contact info (website and email), explaining I feel its important to for them to read the book entirely before they cast their next vote in any election.
Furthermore I would ask that if they have any questions to contact me and if they are willing to write a review or to do an interview to share their thoughts once they’re done reading it to contact me as well.

In the back of the book, perhaps, I’ll insert a dvd with the footage that Eric has offered me. Maybe even insert an audio CD of some sort.

I’ll find 20 people to give the book to, the only thing I ask for in exchange is their phone number and tell them that I plan on calling in about a month or two to see what they thought about it.
People that were inspired I’ll encourage to pass the book along to someone else, people that were unimpressed I might offer to buy the book back at a modest price.

About half of the first 20 books given out will be to selective people that I know personally will enjoy the book and will energize them. Most of these people I know will be willing to find someone else to pass the book to as well.

A couple months after all the books are distributed I hope to compile positive reviews and make a video of inspiring interviews.

After this I hope to take the evidence of the project success to this forum (asking for chip-ins), to local liberty minded groups (meetup, facebook, etc.), C4L and YAL, etc. and implement the same strategy (with mild adjustments) on a larger scale in Indiana.
During the large scale operation we might try to create a bunch of hype through the project in a “have you read this book? You need to read it before voting!” kind of way. If we can create a curiosity factor it would help draw a lot more attention to the book and Ron Paul.

Anybody have any thoughts?

[AZKing]

hillbilly, I don't know what MRE's means. Help me out on that?

Meals, Ready-to-Eat!

http://www.natick.army.mil/about/pao/pubs/warrior/06/marapr/mre_pak.jpg

Just in case the SHTF.

Until Ron categorically says "I'm running and I'm in this to win it", I'm somewhat hesitant to donate more.

[Eric21ND]

10oz of silver would be nice :)

[sailingaway]

Friedchicken, you're more proactive than some, clearly.

Let us know if you need help, though. You might come up with a good idea and need more funds. I think your experience is going to be a lot of what you donate, and we'll want to use it when the time is right.

[FriedChicken]

Thank you very much for the support. Let me get this started on my own and as soon as it starts to take off I'll let everyone know and we'll start a chip-in.
There would be nothing to stop C4L or YAL, legally speaking, from putting up some funds for this type of project ... would there be?

[sailingaway]

Thank you very much for the support. Let me get this started on my own and as soon as it starts to take off I'll let everyone know and we'll start a chip-in.
There would be nothing to stop C4L or YAL, legally speaking, from putting up some funds for this type of project ... would there be?

Yes there likely would, but not to stop their members from donating separately. However, you should put together a plan and see how much people support it financially before you put too much work into it. some things capture the imagination more than others, and sometimes timing is involved. People focus on the locations where something is going to happen, often. So you need kinda like a short business plan (a paragraph or two giving an idea what you are doing) with a chip in, and then you find out your support.

[FriedChicken]

Thanks.
I plan on this 20 book project being like a pilot episode to measure its effectiveness. If its effective than we can put it on the backburner and bring it to life again when the time is better (after Iowa for example). Best case scenario is that it builds some momentum and is self-supporting from Indiana supporters and the rest the forum can focus their funds to more strategic states.

The 20 books and the effort I put into this I'm willing to do regardless of where it leads. If it grows great, if not thats fine and I'll refocus on something else.

[gerryb]

I would suggest getting a copy for the library, and doing flyer-drops with your money instead, to locate other supporters to work with.

[gerryb]

Also, put $35 towards becoming a full C4L member, and read and watch the training material

[The_Ruffneck]

buy silver crash JP morgan