Ed Fallon to speak tomorrow night!

Democratic Bulldogs, its time to get pumped for our first big event of the year.

Tomorrow night at 8 PM gubernatorial candidate Ed Fallon will be with us to speak about his candidacy and the issues that affect us as college students in Iowa. It is the first in what we hope will be a series of a "Coffee with the Candidates" events this year (even though we'll be serving apple cider!). Please make sure you come by and hear this man speak. You won't regret it.

But, if you can't make it, please check out Ed Fallon's website and learn about his campaign and how you can help (if you're interested).

Various Updates

Hey everyone-
Just a couple updates:

- Drake Democrats will have meetings on Thursdays at 7:00pm, sometimes officers' meetings, sometimes general meetings. We're working on when to do general meetings since a lot of times an event we have that week will basically serve as a general meeting.

- If you want to get more involved, e-mail me (Patrick; ptr003@drake.edu). We're working on setting up a seperate e-mail list for folks who want to help out on random events and publicity that come up.

- We all had a great time at the Harkin Steak Fry - about 30 Drake Dems went; we were definetely the largest student group there. Here's two pictures from that (we'll get it on the acutal website soon):















- A big THANK YOU to all the Drake Democrats who made/are making the campus-wide Hurricane Katrina Relief Week a huge success! We had about 10 members help sell beads and t-shirts throughout the week, making us one of, if not the biggest, contributer of volunteers. And our members often worked alongside College Republicans, who also helped out a lot. Thanks to our former-Finance Director Jason Boothe, who helped lead the effort, and helped us all do our part to help in the recovery. Good work everyone!

- And on an amusing note, at the Date Auction for the relief effort, I decided to help out by buying College Republican President Sarah Mayberry for a date. How's that for bi-partisanship?
Have a great weekend everyone!
-Patrick Rynard
President, Drake Dems

New officers!

Well, movie night didn't turn out like we had hoped for, but at least we got elections done!

President--Patrick Rynard
Vice President--Mitch Stehlik
Secretary--Kasey Friedrichsen
Legislative Liaison--Chris Woods
Outreach Director--Nate Koppel
Publicity Director--Steven Amos
Freshman Representative--Michael Goldberg
Finance Director--Amy Huynh
Events Director--Jordan Oster

OC Representative - Kailyn Heston

I think that's everyone. If I missed anyone or screwed up some peoples names, leave a comment and I'll correct them soon.

Elections Info

Hey everyone, here's the details for our upcoming Officers Elections:

At the beginning of Thursday's Meeting/Movie Night we're going to elect all the officers for the 2005-2006 school year. We will start off with electing the President, and then move down the list one-by-one, so in case someone doesn't win a higher-up position, they can still run for one down the list. Each candidate can speak for about a minute about why they'd be good for the position. Here's a list and short description of each officer position in the order we'll elect them:

President: lays out the direction of Drake Dems, chairs meetings, acts as official representative, delegates out tasks

Vice President: Assists President in duties, fills in for President when absent

Finance Director: Organizes the budget, plans fundraising events

Events Director: Plans the details of most major events

Publicity Director: Organizes efforts to publicize events across campus through posters and fliers

Outreach Director: Coordinates events with other organizations, both on and off-campus

Secretary: Takes all notes and official minutes at meetings

Legislative Liason: Acts as link between the state party and elected officials

OC Representative: Attends all Student Senate Organizational Council meetings to represent the Drake Democrats

Freshmen Representative: organizes efforts to attract new members to Drake Dems


I hope everyone shows up to either run or support who they think will best undertake each position's jobs. You don't need to give any prior Good luck!

-Patrick Rynard

Next Meeting

Hey there guys, just passing along the email from Pat:

"Drake Dems-

We're going to be having a general meeting this Thursday night:
8:00PM
Pomerantz Stage

We will have someone there to sell tickets for the Harkin Steak Fry (which is on Sunday the 18th, and John Edwards will be speaking). So if you want to go to the Steak Fry, please come to buy tickets. If you can'tmake it, either give money to someone else, or e-mail me back quickly and we'll figure a way to get you one. They are $15 for students. We'll also figure out how we'll all carpool there (it's in Indianola).

Also, we will be having elections for Drake Dems officers next week. If you areinterested in running, it would be good to come to this meeting. We'll sendout an e-mail on exactly how the elections will run in a few
days."

Make sure to get involved; its the best way to make things happen.

Bring Them Home Now Bus Tour to stop in Des Moines tomorrow!

Ok guys, I've got all of the information that I can get out of the folks coordinating the bus tours. They're getting swamped with lots of press calls and calls from other activists looking for ways to help or be there tomorrow. So, here's the info:

Bring Them Home Now Bus Tour: Des Moines
Nollen Plaza (Locust Ave. & 3rd St. in Downtown)
10 AM to 2 PM
--11 AM press conference
--Noon brown-bag lunch

For more information about the tour, please click here. Make sure you take lots of pictures if you can; I can get them put up at a lot of big name websites. Also, if the Campus Republicans are there, make sure to get some shots of them making asses of themselves.

Sheehan bus tour to come to Des Moines

I’ve just found out that Cindy Sheehan’s bus tour, the "Bring Them Home Now Tour", will swing through Des Moines tomorrow night and stay overnight and be here Friday as well. I’ve also heard that the Drake College Republicans plan on making a scene, as found out through Jesus' General.

I'm working to find out more details as I write this up in class. Any Drake Democrats who are interested in attending should keep checking back here for regular information as it becomes available. As far as I know, the group plans on staying overnight tonight in Des Moines and the bulk of their activities will take place on Friday before they head back out on the road.