The July Lead­er­ship meet­ing worked with Audrey Sal­gado to for­mu­late projects that would be the focus of the state AAUW in the months ahead. They are the Geor­gia Lobby Corps and the 2012 Project.

The goal of the Lobby Corps is to estab­lish a lobby corps to con­duct direct and grass­roots lob­by­ing in the state of Georgia. Lobbying is advo­cat­ing for spe­cific leg­is­la­tion, pro­vid­ing posi­tion sup­port and infor­ma­tion to the leg­is­la­tor. Direct lob­by­ing is talk­ing with a leg­is­la­tor, whether in the home dis­trict or in Atlanta. Grassroots lob­by­ing is con­vinc­ing the pub­lic of the value of spe­cific legislation.

Goal 1:

Estab­lish a list of peo­ple for grass­roots lob­by­ing, includ­ing branch mem­bers and national mem­bers in Geor­gia. The Pub­lic Pol­icy com­mit­tee will send them alerts as to what is com­ing up in the leg­is­la­ture for a vote, and encour­age them to call or write to the leg­is­la­tor from their district.

Goal 2:

A. Recruit branch mem­bers and national mem­bers to direct lobby at home: talk with local leg­is­la­tors in their dis­trict offices.

B. Recruit branch mem­bers and national mem­bers who are will­ing and able to go to Atlanta to lobby in the state house.

Goal 3:

Use the Geor­gia Fam­ily Care Act (HB 432) as the first project work­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Geor­gia job/Family Collaborative.

The Geor­gia Fam­ily Care Act would allow employ­ees who cur­rently have paid sick days on their job, to use them for ill­ness or med­ical appoint­ments, for them­selves, a child, spouse or elderly par­ent. Pro­posed leg­is­la­tion would not require any employer to add addi­tional sick days, only to allow for fam­ily flex­i­ble use of cur­rent policy.

The sec­ond sig­na­ture project is Run for Office or the 2012 Project to encour­age and increase the num­ber of qual­i­fied women run­ning for office in Geor­gia who sup­port AAUW mis­sion and goals. Exist­ing train­ing pro­grams will be assessed and bar­ri­ers to run­ning for office will be explored. The 2012 Project is a national, non-partisan cam­paign to increase the num­ber of women in Con­gress and state leg­is­la­tures by tak­ing advan­tage of the once-in-a-decade oppor­tu­ni­ties of 2012.

Pat DeWitt, Pub­lic Pol­icy Chair, attended the Oct. 3 meet­ing of the Geor­gia Job/Family Col­lab­o­ra­tive in Atlanta. She reports, “You recall that they are pro­mot­ing a bill to allow employ­ees to use paid sick leave for care of imme­di­ate fam­ily” HB 432, is now called Fam­ily Care Act.

Geor­gia Job/Family Col­lab­o­ra­tive received a grant that will allow them to re-grant $250 to any mem­ber orga­ni­za­tion that can recruit at least 3 mem­bers from one leg­isla­tive dis­trict to attend a one-day Cit­i­zen Lead­er­ship Train­ing Work­shop and attend the Geor­gia Women’s Assem­bly on Nov. 10.  Please check the Col­lab­o­ra­tive web­site for more information.

AAUW will have a booth at the National Wom­en’s Stud­ies Asso­ci­a­tion con­fer­ence Novem­ber 10 — 13, 2011. AAUW staff will be attend­ing but will need help staffing the table when they attend ses­sions or are pre­sen­ter. If you would like to help staff the table, con­tact Jes­sica Kelly at kellyj@aauw.org.

The exhibit times are:
Thurs­day, Novem­ber 10, 9 — 7 p.m.
Fri­day, Novem­ber 11, 8 a.m. — 6:40 p.m.
Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 12, 8 a.m. — 6:40 p.m.
Sun­day, Novem­ber 13, 8 a.m. — 1:30 p.m.

A mas­ter sched­ule will be devel­oped and infor­ma­tion will be emailed to you with details.
Addi­tional infor­ma­tion about the table is avail­able at: http://www.nwsa.org/conference/exhibitors/details.php