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ABATE of FLORIDA Inc.
New Legislative Information Center
Letter From ABATE of FLORIDA Inc. State Legislative Trustee Jeff Baxla
Greetings Freedom Fighters,
We have some information to share information regarding our legislative information dissemination and related web info.
At the last State meeting, we announced that Mike Price would be joining our Legislative team at the State level and he has been busy doing exactly that. One of the areas Mike is assisting with is the legislative area of the website and he has been working with Patti to be able to incorporate some nice changes. He has taken responsibility for keeping the information there completely up to date. We have some very nice features still in the works and it will be even more than a place our members can go to for information, Mike has some great features unfolding that will allow participation actively with email from the site, letter writing, and so on.
A dynamite feature will be the ability for members to sign up from the website to receive information from the site as updates are applied. I highly recommend that all Chapters immediately begin encourage their membership with computers to go to the site and sign up. The site will be there for them to go to at their leisure, but they will receive notification about important updates directly from the site if they are signed up.
This is one of the most important features of the site. The site will allow us to use a special email feature to blast out important information or any urgent "Action Required" notifications as we navigate the legislative session. With Mike's help on the site, you will get clear instructions on the site covering what we need done along with samples and examples. The site will send individual emails so we are less likely to have issues with servers filtering and preventing the messages from getting through. One more thing for those using email and spam filters, Mike says to approve the address noticefrom@floridaabate.com in your program as needed. Sometimes this means adding it to your addressbook. This is the email address that you will receive information from when it sent out from the site.
It is really a straightforward process to get signed up and the entire site is laid out to simply and easily navigate but here are some specific instructions to help your newer computer users jump right in.
Go to our main page
At the top in the choices on the left, click on the new selection “Legislative Info Center”
Once you are in the new Legislative Info Center, at the top left, you cannot miss the SIGN UP NOW message.
Click on that and proceed with the sign up as indicated.
Please encourage the members to please have their voter ID in hand when they sign up so we can utilize the full functionality of being able to target specific areas in times of particular need. For folks who want to know more about that Mike has included asking you for your voting district information in the SIGN UP or subscription process to give us an important tool. This data will help us in the future by being able to target those members when a specific Senator, specific Representative, or specific member of the US Congress needs to be contacted by members residing in their District.
We cannot stress enough the important of getting members signed up and encouraging them to enter their legislative District information. Collection of the voter District information will add a most valuable tool to our arsenal by helping us target action in regard to key members when we need a specific constituent base to communicate with our target.
Mike has also put together an introductory page with simple information about the site. Right in the middle of the page when you go to the Legislative information Center you will find First Time Visitor? Click for Introductory Page
We think you will find Mike has limited graphics and kept it simple to make sure you will be able to use this legislative tool with relative ease, even if you are using dial up access
Another important feature we have to look forward to is a Letter Generator that Mike will be rolling out. This is exciting in we will have an important tool for everyone who would like an easy way to participate in our agenda. Mike says that if programming goes smooth, we will have the ability to visit the site, select our Senator or Representative, select a letter or write our own, fill in our personal information and it will print out a letter in proper format, ready to mail. We know some of us can view letter writing as a chore and this feature will help us write the letters with ease. We are hopeful the programming will be complete before the State meeting in February so he can share it with everyone at that time.
We are most appreciative of all of the legislative and other work Patti has done on the site and are also glad Mike has the skills to be able to jump in and add some serious value to our efforts. Patti Nasrallah most of you know as she has been serving on our Board in various positions over the last decade. Whatever she has been involved in, she has always been helpful in trying to drag some of us to where we need to be in regard to utilizing the web medium to further our efforts. As our current Treasurer, she has her hands full and is glad to get all of help she can. I know she is tired of kicking me in the can and trying to drag me where I need to be in regard to web related things and is glad Mike has jumped in with both feet. For those of you who have not met him, Mike has been serving as a Legislative and State Rep for the Alachua County Chapter and we very much appreciate him sharing his talents and energy with us. It is not easy or natural for people with his skills to work within some necessary confines we have in place and we appreciate his patience with that process as well.
I am obviously excited about these changes. Please encourage you membership to get on board with this leg of our journey and go to the site ( with Voter ID in hand ! ) and get signed up
We have already had some good success with being able to respond recently for the HB137 committee hearing. We had the votes to nail the coffin shut; he only escaped by temporarily postponing the bill. Every member of that committee reported to work that day having heard from us and the session has not even started yet. We are not clear when we will need to set that part of our Freedom machine in motion again, but we need to be able to count on your Chapter to be able to pull your weight when we ask for your help. We did have a couple of Chapters not prepared to be able to respond in full. Do not forget we have been in the NHTSA crosshairs since the Spring of 2006 and it drives them nuts that we successfully keep them and others like them at bay. It is the time of year we simply have to keep our Phone Trees idling and warmed up so we can immediately respond. We had very little notice on the 137 committee meeting and that is the way it goes down sometimes. It is absolutely imperative that every single Chapter remains prepared to respond immediately, this means the new members and updates have to continually be added to your Phone Tree. That is who we are and what we are all about.
Working together is how we fought to win yesterday and exactly how we will protect and preserve our Freedoms tomorrow.
Stay safe out there and get those Phone Trees warmed up and ready for action.
JEB