LWVOC Blow By Blow Blog

Florida House to consider new maps Jan. 9

Proposed Redistricting Maps to be Considered on Jan. 9

The Florida House’s Redistricting subcommittees officially noticed meetings for Monday, January 9, 2012 – at which time they will consider proposed committee bills (PCBs) for the State House, State Senate and Congressional maps.

 If you have not already, you can check out the proposed maps and related information via the Redistricting Bills button at www.floridaredistricting.org (or directly at http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Redistricting/Redistricting2012.aspx). The maps are identical to those that were released on Dec. 6 and workshopped in the subcommittees on Dec. 8, 2011.

 The Congressional Redistricting Subcommittee and Senate Redistricting Subcommittee will both meet from 12:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. The House Redistricting Subcommittee will meet from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Want to watch the meetings live? Make sure to visit The Florida Channel at http://thefloridachannel.org/ on Jan. 9. Want to catch up on redistricting committee meetings you may have missed? Visit The Florida Channel’s redistricting committee meeting archive at http://thefloridachannel.org/featured-stories/redistricting/.

 As always, please let us know if you have any questions or need for additional information.

 Happy New Year!

 Benjamin M. Fairbrother

House Redistricting Committee

Florida House of Representatives

400 House Office Building

O: (850) 921-8831

 www.floridaredistricting.org

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Next Hot Topics is Jan. 11

Sometimes I think I have a brain like a flea -- it may work for a flea but it doesn't work for me when I'm writing about Hot Topics. Thanks to Jean Siegfried for catching that I referred to the next Hot Topics as being on the wrong date. Got the day right but not the date. It will be on Jan. 11 at the Sorosis Club, 501 E. Livingston. Hope we get a good crowd to hear Dr. Deborah German, dean of the UCF School of Medicine talk about the school, plans for the future and its impact on the orlando area.

Easy way to know when the HT luncheons are -- they are scheduled be on the SECOND WEDNESDAY of each month throughout 2012.

Meanwhile, Sara Segal and Vera Rushmer are working on getting The Voter out to you all electronically.

Ann Hellmuth

Hogmanay wishes

I've been lax in posting on the blog over the past few days. Not because my life has been filled with parties and get-togethers, but because I've been thoroughly lazy, spending time reading books and studying up on the Constitution in preparation for judging a Florida Law statewide contest on "The Citizen and the Constitution."

The week of Jan. 8 is a busy week for the League with Dr. Deborah German, dean of UCF School of Medicine, speaking at Hot Topics on Wednesday, Jan. 11. Also have a board meeting on the Monday.

Meanwhile, I wish all of you a fabulous New Year. I love New Year's Eve - it was always my favorite holiday growing up. My mother was brought up in Scotland and loved the Hogmanay traditions such as first footing -- the first person who crosses your threshold on Jan. 1 should come with gifts of salt, a piece of coal and bread, signifying wealth, warmth and food. And of course joining arms with guests and even strangers to sing Robbie Burns' Auld Lang Syne at midnight always hit an emotional peak.

HAPPY 2012 dear Leaguers...take a cup of kindness yet for the sake of Auld Lang Syne.

LWVOC President Ann Hellmuth

 

 

Why Be Ready 2012 is so important

The Orlando Sentinel story today about how the changes in Florida's election law are confusing absentee voters, made me realize how important it is for the League to get the Be Ready 2012 information out to voters. If the would-be voters had a Be Ready button or can they could have scanned the app with their Smart Phone, checked their elections office, discovered they were no longer registered for an absentee ballot and applied to receive one....instead many will miss the Jan. 31 primary because they presumed they were still registered to get an absentee ballot. Here's the Sentinel story:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/os-absentee-voting-20111223,0,7334422.story

Happy Holidays and more

Wishing everybody a wonderful holiday, lots of good food, company and memories. My husband and I will be marking the holiday at home and thinking about our daughter and her husband who will be in D.C. Taking a quick look at the events calendar for next year can see 2012 will get off to a busy start with poll worker training so I can be ready for the Jan. 31 presidential election.

Meanwhile, looking at my diary I can see that January will be a busy month for the League. There will be poll training for some of us who will be heldping out with Adopt-a-Precinct at the Jan. 31 presidential primary. And on Saturday, Jan. 21, we will hold our annual planning meeting at which we exchange ideas and vote on the most important issues that members feel the league needs to concentrate on in the coming year. It isn't a stuffy meeting. It is a chance to discuss and examine issues that are important and to rank their priority on the long list of things that the League undertakes in a year.

Do come -- I'll be posting details of exactly when and where shortly.

Ann Hellmuth

 

 

 

 

 

Out With The Old "Place", In With The New

Met with the Communication Committee yesterday. Love the ease of telephone-conferencing from my kitchen! Suzi Albrecht, from JuicyResults, is volunteering her expertise, and has been moving right along with great ideas for the LWVOC website. There is so much which goes into it, way more than a few photos, some addresses and blog links. She compared it to building a house, but it is feeling like the VAB at the Space Center. We are in the foundation stage (necessities), just about ready to hammer in the framing (site map). The dry wall will be up in early January (all the information), with a move-in date into our new, gorgeously appointed "home"page set for later that month. Shall we have a house-warming?

Love the Adopt A Precinct volunteers!

Six weeks away from the primary election. Delighted to report that two Adopt A Precinct teams have been assembled and are ready for election action on January 31. We've met our deadlines for "populating" the board, now you need to meet yours. A new Florida voter must be registered 29 days before the upcoming election. The 29 day deadline also applies to anyone already registered to vote in Florida who wishes to change party affiliation. So make your New Year's resolution:
"Be ready by Jan 3!"

The Voter will soon be on its way

Ann Hellmuth

Just wanted to let you all know that Vera Rushmer and I have been working on the next edition of The Voter and hope to send it out electronically before the end of this week.

Hard to believe that the year is almost over. The LWVOC has a lot of bragging rights this year -- the largest League in Florida, a catalyst in the development with Microsoft of the Be Ready 2012 Smart Phone tag, which helps people connect with their elections office, Hot Topics still drawing good crowds and enthusiastic support and many other things.

I'm so grateful to Vera for spending so much time compiling and laying out The Voter. It is easy to do stream-of-consciousness reports. The hard work comes when you have to put it all together and make it look like a professional publication. Vera is amazing. She catches mistakes, fixes things in a flash and comes up with great ideas for expanding stories or improving coverage.

The big challenge with The Voter is identifying people in all the photos that Sue Foreman takes at Hot  Topics luncheons. I always think that page of photographs is a good way to show people what the LWVOC is all about -- talented, energetic and intelligent men and women who care about the issues of the day.

I'll be updating Facebook and the blog through this week. Might take the weekend off. Expect most of you will be too busy to be bothered with checking emails anyway.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND HAPPY 2012.

 

A new name, a new day

Love the new name Laurie Wack came up with for our blog. Just what the president ordered.

Ann

 

League member pays tribute to Vaclav Havel

By Joanie Schirm

Vaclav Havel has passed away. One of the most amazing men I have ever watched change the world, he will always be a hero in my eyes. Vaclav Havel led without bloodshed his Czechoslovak people through the velvet revolution of 1989, shedding communism from their midst. With his leadership he returned great hope to his beloved country after domination under both the Nazis and the USSR. His steadfast moral strength led them back to a thriving democracy.

A wonderful writer, my favorite is Summer Meditations with his timeless thoughts on how to build a better world through authentic and honorable public engagement at every level accompanied with recognition of a higher moral purpose for us all. He has now met his maker who no doubt guided his words.

My husband Roger and I were very fortunate to have been with him twice in October 2011 at the American Friends of the Czech Republic festivities centering around the restoration of President Woodrow Wilson’s statue at the Prague railway station. He spoke eloquently about the importance of democracy and the long friendship between the American and Czech people. As I look to our nation’s predicament with distasteful political partisanship and a lack of working collaboratively and honestly towards the common good, we can only hope that somewhere in our political midst will arise many individuals who will lead in the manner in which Vaclav Havel did for his country at a time when it mattered most. May he rest in peace and be celebrated for his contributions to a better world.   

FOOTNOTE - Throughout Joanie Schirm's life, she thought she knew her Czech-American father. She never realized that his loving and overprotective nature was rooted in loss far beyond anything a child could imagine. That was until a stunning turn of events in 2008, after the death of her father and her mother, when she made the discovery of a lifetime. Four hundred letters. Seventy-eight writers. One amazing story. My Dear Boy by Joanie Schirm. Coming 2012.

Click link below for national television feature about My Dear Boy.

http://growingbolder.com/media/relationships/family/discovery-of-a-lifetime-647090.html#content_tabs

 

 

 

 

 

 

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