Last Updated on June 11, 2025
We still need 2 people to help at Catonsville Pride on June 21st. If you can be available to help hand out buttons and brochures between 2:00-5:00, you will be saving one of our volunteers from possibly standing in the heat for all three hours. Please contact me ASAP if you are able to help with this request.
Our goal for our June meeting was to brainstorm how to help MD FWD reach out to people who have yet to hear about this organization. We divided the group into four tables. The upshot of our discussion was that we need to start researching some specific topics. Here were our results:
Table 1. Become experts in RCV (Rank Choice Voting). Research & teach it. Gamify the teaching.
Table 2. Tie into the Charlestown Residents’ Council election process so FWD can be represented during that process. Maybe an information table near the Council tables?
Table 3. RCV & how to explain it. Have someone from Tacoma Park come to talk about how it worked, why they liked/didn’t like it. Personal contact – Ask each club member to invite one friend out to coffee to have a one on one discussion about FWD.
Table 4. How to involve other people from different organizations with FWD. Invite them here. Reach out to other Erickson properties or CCRCs or any other already organized group e.g. MD Arts District. Churches. (Lutheran), Arbutus Fire Dept., Catonsville Chamber of Congress, MaCCRA, Conservatives Voices, Progressives Together, Donna Martin’s protest group.
Following is the list of suggestions given to each table before the discussion began. Also provided was a handout listing FWD priorities.
To familiarize people with Maryland Forward: Pick a suggestion; brainstorm how to achieve it; What would be the best case outcome after accomplished?
1. Increase our e-mail list from 59-150 by December.
2. Learn enough about Rank Choice Voting to be able to teach it. Figure out how to make a game of it. Create small teams who will attend events where FWD asks us for representation to go and teach RCV.
3. Designate a representative from Forward to Resident Council Legislative and Politics committee for networking purposes, especially concerning legislation.
4. Reach out to other retirement communities (see list on back of MaCCRA brochure), also other Ericksons. Invite their residents to our meetings
5. Talk w/ rails to trails people who came to speak here at Charlestown. Find out how they got word out asking for volunteers? They asked for help on the trail, got first 20, then 60, then 300 – way more volunteers than they could use.
6. Protest groups like 50501, Hands Off, overpass group here at Charlestown have organized protests quickly through social media. Research how they reached so many people. Should we send Forward representatives to these protests to hand out Forward literature? Can we copy their social media techniques?
We talked about needing a concise way to tell people about FWD, a mission statement, an “elevator pitch,” maybe one that would fit onto a business card. My next email will be about this process.
Rose Ann