Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Exciting News for WSPTA Legislative Program

The Washington State PTA board of directors, in an effort to provide our members with relevant tools to advocate for the children of Washington State, has completed a review of the use of PTA listserv forums.  The legislative talk listserv is not currently serving the intended listserv purpose of providing council and local unit chairs with a forum to discuss how to perform the duties of legislative chair.  Therefore, the legislative talk listserv will be discontinued and a new listserv called “advocacy listserv” will be created.  Council and local unit legislative chairs and advocacy chairs will be automatically enrolled in this listserv.  Where no legislative chair or advocacy chair exists, the local unit president will be enrolled in the advocacy listserv. The new advocacy listserv will serve as a place for the exchange of information to assist legislative and advocacy chairs in providing assistance to their members regarding advocacy and legislative issues relevant to their council and local unit.

Discussion regarding the Washington State PTA legislative platform will occur on the Grassroots Connection blog. When you subscribe to the blog, you will automatically receive email alerts when new posts are added.  By moving discussion regarding our platform issues to the blog, we will be able to organize advocacy efforts and discussions regarding each platform issue.  

Other exciting news regarding the WSPTA Legislative Program, the WSPTA recently hired a legislative advocacy consultant, Tim Farrell, who will monitor legislative activities which relate to the State PTA legislative program issues, and recommend/support, and help coordinate the lobbying effort from now until April 1, 2014.

We are confident that these changes will help focus the efforts of our advocacy and legislative programs and provide knowledge and support to PTA’s dedicated volunteer leaders. As always, please email any questions or concerns about these changes so we can work together to enhance WSPTA’s grassroots advocacy efforts.