Coming soon: separate blog posts for the general election

It’s time to A) get more local and B) get more conversational for the upcoming local elections. (I’ve done blog posts on several races thus far — just click the Elections category to see them.

I’ll be contacting those running for City Council, School Board, and County Commissioner over the next few days, alerting them to the individual blog post here on LoGroNo that’s specific to their race. I’ll invite them to A) first converse with us (me, Ross, Tracy) in the message thread for a bit, and then B) converse with citizens and each other.

For those candidates unable or unwilling to participate online, we’ll have the conversation anyway

Here’s the text of my email to the School Board candidates. Any suggestions for improvement? I’ll use similar boilerplate for the other local races.

Hi folks!

I’d like to invite you to participate in our online discussion about issues relevant to the upcoming election for the Northfield School board.

The discussion will occur in the message thread attached to this blog post:

Election 2008: Northfield School Board – candidates and issues

https://locallygrownnorthfield.org/archives/5329/

Format: an informal roundtable conversation

1. I and my co-hosts, Ross Currier and Tracy Davis, will begin by asking a few questions directed at all of you.

2. Please reply by attaching a comment to the message thread.

3. Your responses can both be directed at us as well as a response to one another.

4. We may opt to direct a question to you as an individual, rather than to the entire group.

5. After a few days, we’ll open up the conversation to Northfield-area citizens who visit our Locally Grown blog.

Guidelines:

1. Be conversational, as if you were doing this in someone’s living room, sitting around a table in comfy chairs

2. Address people by name in the first person tense, eg “Griff, I understand your point but I think you’re missing some facts about …. ”

3. Abide by our Discussion Guidelines. https://locallygrownnorthfield.org/guidelines/

4. Don’t feel obligated to response to everyone and everything

Tech pointers:

1. Subscribe to the message thread so that you get email alerts whenever something new’s been added. (There are two tickboxes to check at the bottom of the comment form. One says “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail”. The other says “Subscribe without commenting.”

2. When compose your reply in the comment box, it’s a good idea to copy the text to your clipboard before submitting it, just in case there’s a hiccup with your computer or your internet connection. It can be frustrating to compose a thoughtful, detailed, witty reply and then to have it go ‘poof’ and disappear into the ozones.

Timeline:

1. We’ll begin this conversation this week and continue it for a another 10 days. If there’s significant interest, we may ask you to continue.

Thanks for considering this. Let us know if you have questions.