LETTERS
While hunters are good at complaining about politics to their friends, too few express their opinions to those who can do something about it: legislators. Constituent input really does make a difference. Legislative staff keep tallies on how many letters arrive on various issues and what position they express. Every letter you send (and your friends send) will be recorded and over time, can have a tremendous impact. According to former member of Congress Billy Evans (D-Georgia), “Legislators estimate that 10 letters from constituents represent the concerns of 10,000 citizens."
If you don’t communicate with the officials representing you about dove hunting, who will?
The antis will certainly weigh in on the matter of dove hunting as they historically have.
You’re probably not going to single-handedly convince your legislators to legalize mourning dove hunting. But many legislators share your objectives and just need to be convinced that there is sufficient public support before putting their necks on the line. The Advocacy Institute explains: “When votes are secured or changed, it’s most likely the aroused constituent-activists—the grassroots—who can claim the credit.”
Don’t get overwhelmed by the project. Just get those letters written and in the mail! As few as 10 letters on any one topic can sway a legislator’s vote. And don’t be discouraged if you receive unfavorable responses; the more we communicate with public officials, the sooner they’ll change their positions. Remember every legislative session a variety of pro-hunting bills are passed by the Legislature and signed into law by the Governor – regardless of the party majority or which party the executive belongs to.
If you write the media, don’t consider your effort a failure if your letter isn’t used in larger publications (where even the best letters face long odds). Each letter is read and plays some role in molding the thinking and content selection of the editors. Especially as more and more people are contacting hunting publications about dove hunting.
Send Your Published Letter to Policy Makers (State legislators, Governor, and the DEC Division of Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources:
Letters to the editor are quick to write, relatively easy to have published, and appear in the most widely read section of the paper, the editorial page. Politicians and government agencies routinely clip and circulate letters to the editor as an indicator of what is important to their constituents. (Think “Political Support”).
Sitting down and writing a letter by yourself is a great start. Now think about how to multiply your activism and really get some attention! Whether as part of a meeting, a social event, or just a gathering of a few friends for coffee, it’s easy and fun to take ten minutes aside to ask everyone to write a letter in support of dove hunting. And when several letters arrive at once, it only heightens the impact and visibility of the issue wherever the letters are received. Have as many people in your group send in letters to the editor at the same time to maximize your odds of getting published and to emphasize the importance of the issue. Whether they print your letters or not, you are letting the paper know that dove hunting is a matter the hunting community cares about.
Host or attend a Letter-Writing Party
Entice people to come along:
Have a potluck. Perhaps legally harvested doves on the menu?
Show a film about dove hunting or the Iowa Dove hearings.
Bring in a guest speaker who can educate people about the matter.
Get people informed and politicized.
Explain:
Who you are writing to and why.
What you are asking for in the letters and why.
What is going on with the political climate around the matter of dove hunting.
Why letter-writing works and tips on how to write good letters.
Have everything people need to write and send their letters.
Make writing letters as easy as possible for people.
Make sure you have sample letters.
Send people away with more action.
Give people extra sample letters to give to friends.
Give them petition forms.
Report Back
Keep track of the number of letters you generate and take photos. Post them to your meetup or send them to NY Dove Hunting.
Focus Alerts
One of the most successful strategies are letter writing campaigns. With NY Dove Hunting’s online information bank the next logical step is using this information to educate and influence the media, policy makers, and the hunting community.
Letter writing is fun and interesting and it is rewarding to see publications change their editorial views when you persistently enlighten them with facts, science and reason.
Send out a Focus Alert about twice a month. The Alerts contain information on an article, editorial or program that we find particularly important.
Letters to the Editor, Guest Columns, Editorials
Unless the media serves hunters exclusively, letters must only be rebuttals to anti-hunting content. Do not go on the offensive with hunting matters, but by all means do not ignore attacks.
We encourage volunteers to send a letter or take some other action in response. The letters to the editor page is often second only to the sports page as the most read part of any newspaper. If appropriate, we sometimes encourage our volunteers to write to their home town newspapers as well. However, it is rarely to our advantage as hunters to address the general public, unless in response to an attack recently published. That puts us at a serious disadvantage, because not do editorial letters reach thousands of readers, you will also be bringing your concerns to the attention of policymakers, who often refer to the opinion pages to learn what issues really matter to the public. However, for the same reason, once the topic is unveiled, it becomes important to make a strong response with factual rebuttals.
Letters to Businesses
Use your clout as a consumer to protest companies that support anti-hunting initiatives.
Networking
Get connected with other dove hunting advocates, experts, academics, lawyers, economists, sociologists.
Online Chat
Chat is a place for activists to organize and coordinate their activities, and for the general public to learn and ask questions about our efforts. While its atmosphere is friendly and informal, we strive to keep profanity and offensive behavior under control. We believe in freedom of speech, but with freedom comes responsibility. Online hunting communities are arguably disruptive and unproductive. However, with thorough vetting and zero tolerance monitoring they can work.
Mailing Lists
A mailing list is simply a single email address which redirects mail to many other email addresses. To be a bit more precise, an automated process accepts mail sent to that address, processes it, and resends it to a list of addresses.
Internet mailing lists and newsletter distribution are different, but both are useful.
Internet mailing lists are most often used for discussion groups centered on a specific topic, in which case every subscriber can post to the list.
For newsletter distribution, only the author(s) contribute content and the subscribers just read.
Social Networking
Do not dismiss or underestimate social networking and social marketing. NY Dove Hunting is on You Tube, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and google plus.
Our petition; and all of our material - articles, maps, and graphs carry share buttons for ALL social sites as well a button to email them.
Developing your own social network and regular email list will enable you to increase the reach of NY Dove Hunting by sharing our material, with or without your own commentary.
Write a Press Release
A press release is created and distributed to inform media personnel about a newsworthy event. The objective is to grab their interest and get them to not only attend the event but also publish a story about it. Again, it is not to our advantage to reach the general public, so press releases should be directed to media which serves only hunters.
Here is a good format to follow when submitting a press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE or PRESS RELEASE
Headline
Event information - including who, what, when, where and why - in 3-5 clear, concise paragraphs.
Contact Information and organization name/address
A good Press Release should be no more than one 8x11" page of paper when printed. A second page can be used if it includes relevant photos of the cited event or primary individual(s) related to the story. Your Press Release should be sent out twice if possible - once no more than a week prior to the cited event and again the day before.
Whenever possible, follow up on all sent PRs by contacting the media source by telephone and asking to speak with the reporter or columnist to whom the PR was assigned.
You’re probably not going to single-handedly convince your legislators to legalize mourning dove hunting. But many legislators share your objectives and just need to be convinced that there is sufficient public support before putting their necks on the line. The Advocacy Institute explains: “When votes are secured or changed, it’s most likely the aroused constituent-activists—the grassroots—who can claim the credit.”
Don’t get overwhelmed by the project. Just get those letters written and in the mail! As few as 10 letters on any one topic can sway a legislator’s vote. And don’t be discouraged if you receive unfavorable responses; the more we communicate with public officials, the sooner they’ll change their positions. Remember every legislative session a variety of pro-hunting bills are passed by the Legislature and signed into law by the Governor – regardless of the party majority or which party the executive belongs to.
If you write the media, don’t consider your effort a failure if your letter isn’t used in larger publications (where even the best letters face long odds). Each letter is read and plays some role in molding the thinking and content selection of the editors. Especially as more and more people are contacting hunting publications about dove hunting.
Send Your Published Letter to Policy Makers (State legislators, Governor, and the DEC Division of Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources:
Letters to the editor are quick to write, relatively easy to have published, and appear in the most widely read section of the paper, the editorial page. Politicians and government agencies routinely clip and circulate letters to the editor as an indicator of what is important to their constituents. (Think “Political Support”).
Sitting down and writing a letter by yourself is a great start. Now think about how to multiply your activism and really get some attention! Whether as part of a meeting, a social event, or just a gathering of a few friends for coffee, it’s easy and fun to take ten minutes aside to ask everyone to write a letter in support of dove hunting. And when several letters arrive at once, it only heightens the impact and visibility of the issue wherever the letters are received. Have as many people in your group send in letters to the editor at the same time to maximize your odds of getting published and to emphasize the importance of the issue. Whether they print your letters or not, you are letting the paper know that dove hunting is a matter the hunting community cares about.
Host or attend a Letter-Writing Party
Entice people to come along:
Have a potluck. Perhaps legally harvested doves on the menu?
Show a film about dove hunting or the Iowa Dove hearings.
Bring in a guest speaker who can educate people about the matter.
Get people informed and politicized.
Explain:
Who you are writing to and why.
What you are asking for in the letters and why.
What is going on with the political climate around the matter of dove hunting.
Why letter-writing works and tips on how to write good letters.
Have everything people need to write and send their letters.
Make writing letters as easy as possible for people.
Make sure you have sample letters.
Send people away with more action.
Give people extra sample letters to give to friends.
Give them petition forms.
Report Back
Keep track of the number of letters you generate and take photos. Post them to your meetup or send them to NY Dove Hunting.
Focus Alerts
One of the most successful strategies are letter writing campaigns. With NY Dove Hunting’s online information bank the next logical step is using this information to educate and influence the media, policy makers, and the hunting community.
Letter writing is fun and interesting and it is rewarding to see publications change their editorial views when you persistently enlighten them with facts, science and reason.
Send out a Focus Alert about twice a month. The Alerts contain information on an article, editorial or program that we find particularly important.
Letters to the Editor, Guest Columns, Editorials
Unless the media serves hunters exclusively, letters must only be rebuttals to anti-hunting content. Do not go on the offensive with hunting matters, but by all means do not ignore attacks.
We encourage volunteers to send a letter or take some other action in response. The letters to the editor page is often second only to the sports page as the most read part of any newspaper. If appropriate, we sometimes encourage our volunteers to write to their home town newspapers as well. However, it is rarely to our advantage as hunters to address the general public, unless in response to an attack recently published. That puts us at a serious disadvantage, because not do editorial letters reach thousands of readers, you will also be bringing your concerns to the attention of policymakers, who often refer to the opinion pages to learn what issues really matter to the public. However, for the same reason, once the topic is unveiled, it becomes important to make a strong response with factual rebuttals.
Letters to Businesses
Use your clout as a consumer to protest companies that support anti-hunting initiatives.
Networking
Get connected with other dove hunting advocates, experts, academics, lawyers, economists, sociologists.
Online Chat
Chat is a place for activists to organize and coordinate their activities, and for the general public to learn and ask questions about our efforts. While its atmosphere is friendly and informal, we strive to keep profanity and offensive behavior under control. We believe in freedom of speech, but with freedom comes responsibility. Online hunting communities are arguably disruptive and unproductive. However, with thorough vetting and zero tolerance monitoring they can work.
Mailing Lists
A mailing list is simply a single email address which redirects mail to many other email addresses. To be a bit more precise, an automated process accepts mail sent to that address, processes it, and resends it to a list of addresses.
Internet mailing lists and newsletter distribution are different, but both are useful.
Internet mailing lists are most often used for discussion groups centered on a specific topic, in which case every subscriber can post to the list.
For newsletter distribution, only the author(s) contribute content and the subscribers just read.
Social Networking
Do not dismiss or underestimate social networking and social marketing. NY Dove Hunting is on You Tube, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and google plus.
Our petition; and all of our material - articles, maps, and graphs carry share buttons for ALL social sites as well a button to email them.
Developing your own social network and regular email list will enable you to increase the reach of NY Dove Hunting by sharing our material, with or without your own commentary.
Write a Press Release
A press release is created and distributed to inform media personnel about a newsworthy event. The objective is to grab their interest and get them to not only attend the event but also publish a story about it. Again, it is not to our advantage to reach the general public, so press releases should be directed to media which serves only hunters.
Here is a good format to follow when submitting a press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE or PRESS RELEASE
Headline
Event information - including who, what, when, where and why - in 3-5 clear, concise paragraphs.
Contact Information and organization name/address
A good Press Release should be no more than one 8x11" page of paper when printed. A second page can be used if it includes relevant photos of the cited event or primary individual(s) related to the story. Your Press Release should be sent out twice if possible - once no more than a week prior to the cited event and again the day before.
Whenever possible, follow up on all sent PRs by contacting the media source by telephone and asking to speak with the reporter or columnist to whom the PR was assigned.
Use the Mourning Dove Fact Sheet to help you with the facts!