On Sunday, July 14th at the Community Church of Chapel Hill UU, the IVRF Mobilization & Advocacy Committee (MAC) held a Congregational Voter Mobilization Retreat for our Key Contacts. The event was a big success. We had 20 participants from 12 different congregations. People walked into the retreat depressed and left energized; for three hours, we had an in-depth exciting exchange of ideas of what congregations are doing and plan to do to Get Out the Vote in the next three months (yes, just 3 months).

Reverend Thom Belote of the Community Church welcomed the group at the start of the Retreat and shared all our feelings of the sad state of the nation. He emphasized that we need to keep on with our work in defense of our values for justice and freedom. Then, three congregations (Comm. Church, Church of Rec. and Judea Reform) shared in-depth presentations of their current activities and future plans. The discussion was then opened up for all to share and ask questions and stimulate exciting new ideas for mobilizing our congregations. One of the new ideas motivated by the retreat came from a Key Contact with Kehillah Synagogue who is going through the congregational directory calling ALL members to invite them to join the Get Out the Vote effort.

We will meet again in mid-August to continue this important conversation and amazing exchange of ideas. Utilizing the Key Contacts and having people get to know each other has been terrific for building our IVRF community. No matter what is happening, our mission is to keep on going with our fight for democracy and in defense and advocacy of our shared values.