Time to take care of business for 2022
1. Register to attend KBAD’s New Leaders Social Hour
We anticipate having four vacancies on the KBAD board of directors, meaning we are in need of new leaders to help guide our organization into the future.
Sign up to attend a virtual social hour on Jan. 5 at 7 p.m. to learn more about what it means to be a KBAD board member, committee leader, or just a more active volunteer. Current members of the KBAD leadership team will participate in a casual social hour to discuss opportunities to take our action-focused club into the future.
We are currently recruiting talented new leaders to join KBAD's executive board before elections are held in January. Please register in advance to join this Zoom meet-up and get to know the current and potential new board members.
Learn more about KBAD's board and bylaws by visiting our website.
If you are already ready to be considered as a member of the board of directors, send your biography to Gary Gibbs, chair of the nominations committee, by Jan. 7. The nominations committee will recommend a slate of officers for consideration at KBAD’s January Membership Meeting. Send your bios to [email protected].
2. Pay Your Membership Dues
To vote on the new slate of officers who will lead KBAD in 2022, you must be a dues-paying member before our January membership meeting, which is tentatively scheduled for Jan. 30. If you aren’t sure if you are in good standing with your dues, email us at [email protected] and we’ll check for you.
3. Sign Up to be a KBAD Volunteer
As a grassroots-based and member-supported organization, KBAD simply wouldn’t exist without our volunteers. And that’s why we are now using Evergreen, a new tool we are using to organize our volunteer efforts.
Evergreen is an event and volunteer management system provided by Humanitru, which is our database system we use to keep track of our members, supporters, and volunteers. Going forward, Evergreen is the system that we will use for sign-up forms and volunteer management.
We are inviting all KBAD members and volunteers to get acquainted with Evergreen by setting up an account and signing up to volunteer in our upcoming efforts. This form is a general-purpose questionnaire to let us know about your interests and availability to volunteer.
4. Make an End-of-Year Donation
The COVID-19 pandemic has made political work difficult because of our desire to do it in safe and socially responsible ways. We plan to return to in-person membership meetings in 2022, but we realize that there may be some who cannot attend in-person because of safety concerns and other challenges. So there will likely be a hybrid or live streaming component to any meetings we do in the future.
To help us provide high-quality audio and video at our future hybrid meetings, we need help paying for new camera equipment. We have identified a camera and a stand that we believe will suit our needs for these purposes that together cost about $500.
Please consider making a donation now that will help us pay for this equipment so it will be available to us as we work to overcome the challenges of doing political work while dealing with COVID-19.
5. Become a VDR
We will need to continue our voter registration efforts if we are going to ensure that everyone who lives in Hays County is actually registered to vote. People are moving into Hays County every day and they don’t always think about updating their voter registration status when they move to a new home. And there are thousands of young people who are nearing voting age or have never registered to vote. We can solve this problem by becoming Volunteer Deputy Registrars (VDR).
Becoming a VDR is easier than you might think. Travis County's Voter Registration office is stepping up in a big way by providing online training on Zoom. We can take advantage of this in Hays County because our elections office will offer you a reciprocal certification after you are certified through Travis County's training session.
To participate in the training, use this sign-up form to register for one of the regularly scheduled sessions linked here.
Register as a KBAD Volunteer
We encourage new and existing KBAD members and volunteers to register for an Evergreen account immediately. Get started by clicking the green "Check In" button to complete your sign-up as a KBAD volunteer.
How to set up an Evergreen account
KBAD is all about making connections in our communities, and that starts with our neighborhoods. And to be successful we need volunteers who can knock on doors, register voters, host social events and help with community service projects.
Set up your Evergreen account today and sign up to help with one of the following areas and let us know if you have any particular resources, skills or expertise that might be helpful in our 2022 Get-Out-The-Vote efforts.
- block walking and door knocking
- register voters at community events
- host social events
- talk to voters on the phone
- create and share voting information
- social media outreach
- outreach to Spanish-language speakers
- outreach to young and new voters
Get started by clicking the green "Check In" button to complete your sign-up as a KBAD volunteer.
IMPORTANT: After clicking the "Check In" button, you will be prompted to sign in to Humanitru. You will most likely have to register for an account at this time by clicking the "Register Here" button.
Screenshot of Humanitru Sign-Up Page
Upcoming online VDR training dates and times
Below are the upcoming dates for online VDR training provided by Travis County before the primary election on March 1.
- Jan. 8 at 10:30 a.m.
- Jan. 11 at 10:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.
- Jan. 15 at 10:30 a.m.
- Feb. 5 at 10:30 a.m.
- Feb. 8 at 10:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.
If you would rather not sit through the training, you can take a test at the Hays County Elections Office during regular business hours. The process is as easy as passing an open-book multiple-choice test, which can be completed in about 10 minutes at the Hays County Government Center.
Visit the KBAD website with more information and helpful guides on how to complete this process.