Final Listening Sessions Announced, Host Your Own, Vote Online
After four months, two dozen listening sessions and a quarter million IdeaJam votes, this public input phase of the America's Great Outdoors Initiative is coming to a close in just a few weeks. We need a strong finish to ensure that land trust ideas like the enhanced easement incentive and improvements to federal programs are part of the Presidential report due this November.
UPDATE: While the Administration will continue taking comments through September, they'll begin drafting their report right after Labor Day, so please vote and help spread the word as soon as possible: www.tinyurl.com/landtrustideas.
Final Listening Sessions in Florida, Tennessee, Illinois, South Dakota and Maine
The last five official listening sessions have been announced. If any of these are near you, we hope you'll make time to attend and speak about the importance of working with land trusts:
- Florida: August 26 in Kissimmee (announcement & talking points)
- Tennessee: August 27 in Nashville (announcement & talking points)
- Illinois: August 30 & 31 in Chicago (Aug30 announcement, Aug31 announcement & talking points)
- South Dakota: September 1 in Fort Pierre (announcement & talking points)
- Maine: September 2 in Bangor (announcement & talking points)
No Listening Session Near You? Host Your Own!
If you were holding out for a nearby session that never arrived, now is the time to host your own! It need not be a big production--consider hosting a conference call or adding an agenda item to your next general meeting. The process is quite simple:
- Send an announcement encouraging your supporters to participate and include a link to the videos at: www.doi.gov/americasgreatoutdoors/Organizers-Toolkit.cfm
- Ask four key questions:
-- Challenges: What obstacles exist to achieve your goals for conservation, recreation, or reconnecting people to the outdoors?
-- What works: What are the most effective strategies for conservation, recreation and reconnecting people to the outdoors that you have used?
-- Federal government role: How can the federal government be a more effective partner in helping to achieve conservation, recreation or reconnecting people to the outdoors?
-- Tools: What additional tools and resources would help your efforts be even more successful? - Take detailed notes, organized by question, and send them along with participant contact information to: ago@ios.doi.gov.
That's it! If you host a successful session please tell us about it: policy@lta.org. Thanks!
Email, Post and Tweet for Land Trust Ideas in the IdeaJam
Your email lists--even very short ones--could make a huge difference in the America's Great Outdoors IdeaJam voting. "Making the Enhanced Easement Incentive Permanent" still has just 136 votes, so a dozen land trusts getting a dozen board members to vote would double that total and a 1,000-person email list could change the landscape entirely!
To make things easy, we've set up one link to all the land trust ideas: http://tinyurl.com/landtrustideas.
After registering, you can simply go down the list and hit "promote" for each idea you like. Click on an idea title to add your comments and words of support. If you post a new idea, you can add it to that list by including "land trusts" in your list of tags.
Our August 10 Advocates alert was set up as an email you can easily forward (with a brief personal introduction) to all your email lists.
We also encourage you to spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, and your webpage. Here are some sample posts:
- Vote for policies that support [YOUR LAND TRUST] in the America's Great Outdoors IdeaJam: http://tinyurl.com/landtrustideas
- Vote to make the enhanced easement incentive permanent in the America's Great Outdoors IdeaJam: http://tinyurl.com/AGOEasements
- Vote to promote [STATE PROGRAM/LOCAL EXAMPLE] as a national model in the America's Great Outdoors IdeaJam: (Set up a short link for your idea at www.tinyurl.com)
If you're on Twitter, you can also "follow" @ltalliance and "retweet" today's post.
We haven't seen a firm deadline for comments, but we believe it's just a few weeks away, so please take a moment to share your ideas today!
UPDATE: While the Administration will continue taking comments through September, they'll begin drafting their report right after Labor Day, so please vote and help spread the word as soon as possible: www.tinyurl.com/landtrustideas.
Thanks for helping!
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