Phoenix Area-- Fifth Monthly TUG Meeting

R

RickD

Moderator
Meeting in two days...

From: Alan Korwin <Alan@bloomfieldpress.com>
Subject: Tug Meeting 1/17/01

Coming up: Wednesday, January 17, 2000, 6 p.m.

NOTICE OF COMBINED GUN RIGHTS MEETING
NOTICE OF COMBINED GUN RIGHTS MEETING
NOTICE OF COMBINED GUN RIGHTS MEETING

SPECIAL JOINT MEETING OF MEMBERS OF --

Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Association
Bloomfield Press
Brassroots, Inc.
Citizen's Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
Deer Tribe Gun Club
Friends of the NRA
Gun Owners Action League
Gun Owners of America
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
KeepAndBearArms.com
LegacyOfGunControl.com
Libertarian Party (Arizona)
Maricopa County Libertarian Party
Mothers Arms
National Rifle Association
Second Amendment Is For Everyone
Second Amendment Sisters
Single Action Shooting Society
Tyranny Response Team

---Group leaders---
***Please be sure to notify your members***

The next meeting of “The Umbrella Group” (TUG):

Wednesday, January 17, 2000
6 p.m. to 7 p.m. dinner
7 p.m. to 9 p.m. meeting

COUNTRY HARVEST BUFFET RESTAURANT
7720 S. Priest Dr., Tempe, AZ

SW corner of Elliot and Priest, just east of I-10
Private meeting room holds 125
Unlimited buffet, under $10 incl. tax and tip
Separate checks

PLEASE RSVP TO TIM WEAVER
tim@brassroots.org

Come early to ensure yourself a good seat.

TUG meetings are now set for
the third Wednesday of each month
thru June 2001. Location may change
depending on the size of the crowd.

BACKGROUND for newcomers:

At a dinner meeting on August 29, 2000, members of the above groupsdecided to hold a massive pow wow of gun-rights activists. Representatives and members of those and related groups were invited to attend.

The plan started as an idea from Rick DeStephens and Tim Weaver of Brassroots, Inc., along with Angel Shamaya of KeepAndBearArms.com and Alan Korwin of Bloomfield Press.

The purpose of the meeting is to bring together Arizona's gun rights groups into a loose coalition that we anticipate will benefit each activist group. Think of it as a pro-freedom get-together where no group loses its autonomy but instead may be able to learn from and lean upon the people and resources of other groups.

This meeting, which has been playfully dubbed, "TUG," or "The Umbrella Group," serves no other purpose than to satisfy the needs of real, shoe-leather activists. TUG has no leaders, no 501(C)(3) status, no board of directors, no veto power. It evaporates as soon as the meeting ends, and re-forms when the next meeting starts. It is an exercise in
the right to assemble. What it does is provide a forum for activist groups to present a plan of activism to those who show up ready and willing to fight for freedom.

This is to be a working group, not just a coffee klatch for
entertainment, or for gossip and complaints about the day's news. We're expecting to set in motion both single-event and long-term action plans that will help preserve our constantly attacked and frequently jeopardized liberties. It will also be an enormously educational forum.

Leaders of the individual groups will have time to stand up and talk about plans of action. Their presentations will hopefully have been well-thought out, complete with handouts and sign-up sheets if they wish. They will cover what their group is, what their plans are, andwhat they need from you for their projects to succeed. If a presenter's plan tickles your activist soul then you can get together in a breakout session or after the meeting, talk over the details and swap contact information. If it doesn't suit your style or your politics you can sit back and wait for a presentation that does.

When possible, floor time may be available for attendees to present action plans themselves. It doesn't have to be about gun rights, but ought to and probably will be for the first few meetings. Ultimately, the fundamental focus is freedom, and the goal is activism. Long-winded speeches and "preaching to the choir" should be discouraged, because we
generally know the issues already -- what we want are plans and recommendations for actions that attendees can follow. Anyone being counterproductive will be booed out of attendance by everyone else.

The idea is to focus on issues that concern us as free people, and actions we can take to help preserve and strengthen our precious rights. Some of us will probably hang out yakking in the parking lot till dawn.



Does this sound like something we have long needed? Does this sound like something for which you could invest some time? Do you have a friend or two who would also like to attend?

If your answer is YES! then you need to show up and start TUGging.
 
time to go on the offensive with these guys

I'll be there, RickD. Some of these cities around here are
getting a little too ignorant of the cage the staties put
them in last session and need some more reminding...
 
This is fantastic! Every state should attempt such an effort. RickD, I'm printing your post and will use it an an example to peak interest here in NYS.

Strength in Numbers ...

V.
 
Cool, Variantis.

That is what I am hoping for. Each state capitol city should have one of these. All it takes is a group of people to set it up.

The whole idea started with the .50BMG rifle raffle legal defense fund for Bob Stewart last summer. As the time approached for the drawing, I knew that I would have a whole bunch of people sitting in a restaraunt hoping that they would be the winner (some from out of state like North Carolina, Nevada, California, Utah, and Colorado).

I thought surely there could be a higher purpose for this meeting, something longer lasting. So, through my activism I had gotten to know several people who knew several other people. We had a pre-meeting of various groups named above and told them about the TUG concept (very difficult for some people to fathom as they constantly ask how to pay dues to join), it is a little foreign to most.

Then we told those leaders to tell their membership and encourage them to come. Surprisingly, the big groups like NRA and its affiliates wanted little to do with it. They found that the TUG concept (leaderless) didn't allow them to control anything. In fact, it would allow smaller groups like Second Amendment Sisters or Tyranny Response Team to actually borrow from the bigger groups membership. The big groups apparently didn't see that set up to their advantage, so they faded out.

GOA and CCRKBA are just now gearing up for involvement. It takes a while for those big national groups to spool up the turbines, ya know? That is why we need TUG-like groups. They can act quickly.

We set up TUG listserves and had people sign up so they could be notified of TUG meetings and events. So far, so good.

Keep in mind, the way TUG is set up, there is no control after the activism gets going. Let's say someone suggests (read: volunteers) setting up a "TUG-LAW" legislative committee to write bills and follow legislation. Once the committee gets going, it is completely separate from anything else going on at a TUG meeting. The law committee may very well give updates at the monthly meeting or decide not to. It is up to them. That bugs some people. Not me.

No matter how you set this up, you have to do this local activism stuff. Yeah, do a rifle raffle to gather the people and begin from there. You may decide to continue the TUG unorganized organization or you may decide to turn it into a branch of 2A Sisters, or TRT, or whatever.

You may not get 125 people showing up. But what if you have 30 show up and of them a dozen motivated activists appear. Think what political havoc you could create with just this Dirty Dozen? We have frozen the State of Arizona with a half-dozen dedicated City-Council-Tormentors. What fun.

It will take some effort. But it will be worth it.

Fear not. Just do SOMETHING.

The antis are organized. Time we are too.

Rick
Scan http://www.keepandbeararms.com for more descriptions of TUG.
 
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