As the world—including our own disturbingly under-tested country—heads toward a pandemic, we find ourselves having to take two sets of actions: 1) keeping ourselves safe through social distancing and canceling events, while 2) continuing to fight against the unrelenting and disturbing agenda coming from our current Administration.
Keeping Ourselves Safe
We have canceled all of our in-person events—including General Meetings and Pints & Postcards—through the month of March. We will continue to monitor the situation to determine when it is safe to resume meetings. Our MoC staff meetings are not canceled—we are following the leadership of the Congressional staff as the situation progresses.
By canceling our events, we are hoping to slow the transmission of the virus. This is for the safety of our members as well as our broader community. It is important to keep ourselves healthy so that hospitals aren’t overwhelmed in the event of a spike in serious illness. This is called “flattening the curve”. Here is what you can do in your daily life.
- Wash your hands thoroughly — it should take at least forty seconds, and follow the WHO’s procedure for actually washing every square inch of your hands. Use plain old soap and water; soap obliterates “enveloped” viruses like the one that causes COVID-19.
- Regularly clean doorknobs, toilet handles, sink faucets, your phone’s screen, keyboards and mice, and any other frequently-touched surface.
- Avoid unnecessary physical contact (hugs and handshakes).
- Cough in the crook of your elbow.
- Self-isolate when sick and practice social distancing.
- Only buy and wear a mask if you feel you have symptoms; masks are not effective at keeping germs out.
- Don’t hoard items (such as masks and alcohol wipes) needed by medical professionals.
Check out the CDC’s list of steps to prevent infection. For more guidelines on how you can help to flatten the curve, follow this link.
Continuing our political efforts
There’s plenty to do from home and ways you can help your community. For example, right now we are planning open letters to our MoCs on Slack.
Other initiatives include electing a new Steering Committee and spinning up lots of electoral work to flip the Senate!
It’s time to elect a new Steering Committee
The ISF Steering Committee (SC) is the elected body of up to 10 members that coordinates ISF operations, programs, and endeavors. Every six months the SC is elected by the ISF membership through online voting. If you are currently active with ISF and are signed up to use our Slack messaging service, please consider volunteering to serve on the SC—we need you.
Nominate yourself for SC election by using the Google form here.
As an SC member you'll help guide our strategic direction and program development and provide oversight and administration for ISF. The SC meets twice a month (remote participation is possible, but face-to-face participation is desirable), conducts business between meetings via Slack and (occasionally) email or phone. For a summary of SC duties, responsibilities, and election procedures (as specified in the ISF charter) see our document here.
Nominations close at the end of Sunday, March 15. Election voting starts Wednesday, March 18, and ends Wednesday, April 8. The new SC will take office on April 9.
Textbank from home. To turn America around after the devastation that Trump has wrought, we’ll need to win the Senate. Join IndivisiTexting at the Payback Project to help us flip the Senate. Textbanking is proven to improve turnout and is one of the easiest, fastest ways to reach voters—and you can do it all from the comfort of your home, all you need is an internet connection.
Write letters from home as part of the VoteForward campaign. This is the same service we use at Pints & Postcards to reach voters to GOTV. Vote Forward volunteers send heartfelt handwritten letters to progressive-leaning unregistered and low-propensity voters encouraging them to participate in our democracy. The letters have been shown to boost turnout significantly. As long as you have a printer, envelopes and stamps, you can print out letters to voters, write your heartfelt messages, and send them out! To find out more, visit https://votefwd.org/.
Donate to our postcard writing efforts—we are spending that money only on paper, postage, and envelopes!
For more tips on activism while at home, read our blog post!
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Next Indivisible SF General Meeting is CANCELED for the month.
Sunday, Mar 15: Indivisible SF General Meeting and Pints & Postcards ARE CANCELED for the month. We’re staying home due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Watch this space for opportunities to join us from home and for word of the return of regular meetings and voter-outreach gatherings.
Monday, Mar 16, 1:30–4:30pm: DemAction SF Phone Bank in West Portal at a private residence. Make GOTV calls to Arizona voters and write postcards to underrepresented voters in swing states. RSVP here.
Note: Many DemAction events in the City have been canceled following the City’s emergency declaration pertaining to the outbreak.
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Keep Fighting,
The Indivisible SF Team
If you'd like to support our all-volunteer team:
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Get each week’s call scripts and events directly to your phone with Amplify, an app created by one of the members of Indivisible SF. To use the Amplify app:
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Download from the Android or iOS app store
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Open the app and tap 'create new account' to sign up
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Join the Indivisible SF team using the invite code 101-202-303
- Cheer someone on and/or take an action
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