PRAC Monthly Meeting

March 25, 2015

Present: Doug, Omar, Averill, Sharnelle, Mehak, Amy, Jennifer, Gil

Regrets: Tasleem, Jennifer Chieh, Melanie

1. PRC Updates:

The second round of our Speaker Series presentations is coming up soon! We have invited Ted Clugston, Mayor of Medicine Hat, Alberta, to come talk about becoming a strong advocate of the Housing First Model in order to fight homelessness in his town. The events will take place in Abbotsford and Vancouver on April 28 and 29, so put it in your calendars!

This was also Averill’s last day with the PRC. She was doing an internship with us, doing some research about “corporate welfare” in BC, so expect us to use that valuable information in upcoming materials. A BIG “thank you” to her, and we wish her the best!

2. PRAC updates:

The PRAC Youth Coordinator position is close to being filled! We just conducted interviews with the last selected candidates, and after the group heard a brief update from Melanie over the phone, there was some further debating about the candidates’ strengths and possibilities of filling the position.

The launch of the Poverty Myth Busters campaign was a huge success! The website has been visited quite a lot, and the video is already close to 500 views. There’s been lots of action on social media and all the feedback we’ve received has been very positive. Great work!

3. Poverty Myth Busters:

The group talked about possible next myths to tackle:

  • Transit
  • The minimum wage
  • That 20 cents “makes a difference”
  • That raising the minimum wage “hurts” businesses
  • Welfare
  • The stress and time it takes to deal with everyday life
  • The amount of resources spent on “checking” people vs. what they actually get
  • How “corporate welfare” is really big, but not perceived as “bad”
  • Housing
  • Connected to welfare as rents are really high and unaffordable

After debating all possibilities the group agreed that they did not want to focus on another “working-related” myth too much, as the first two already do. Welfare came up as the issue that most felt should be tackled next, and there were some proposals of how the myth could work:

  • Myth: “People on welfare don’t work” Fact: “Being on welfare is a full-time job”
  • Myth: “Welfare costs us/society too much”
  • Perhaps the myth can be tackled through an infographic or “game of life” poster, rather than a photo?

Once the myth to tackle started becoming clearer, the group decided that the next step should be to have a meeting with people directly affected by this and chat with them about the campaign, to ask them what/how they would like to address the issue. The group also agreed this meeting should happen as soon as possible, and perhaps a sub-committee could take it on, but everyone will be invited and hopefully will want to come too.

The group also talked about a few tweaks they’d like to see on the PMB website:

  • To add a simpler petition form right under the video, as people may not follow along if they have to click and scroll too much.
  • That a few days after people sign the petition, they should get a message saying something like “Thanks! now contact your MLA”

Campaign promotion:

  • Sharnelle mentioned that she has a friend who works in communications, so she can ask her for some ideas/pointers about what we could do to keep the campaign rolling.
  • Amy mentioned that at a recent Columbia Institute event they showed the PMB video, and that we could try to connect with them for help in distributing our materials.
  • We should create a sort of template so that everyone can adapt it and start promoting the campaign through their networks, and ask friends to promote it themselves.
  • We should target youth (high schools) as they are more likely to help make it “go viral”
  • We should contact people who have watched or attended events for the Under the Rainbow film, as they may be likely to be more receptive to the campaign.
  • We should check with the BCTF, as they have Social Justice committees that may be interested in this.
  • We should set goals for our campaign (how many Tweets/Likes, how many petition signatures, etc.) so that we can aim for those

4. PRAC group discussion:

  • Since our meeting space is not 100% secure, we should all look into other venues that we could get access to.
  • Doug’s office (near Commercial Dr. and Broadway) could be available for free!
  • We could create a Facebook presence for the PRAC group, which would allow everyone to interact and help in the promotion and distribution of materials. This could also give the group a place to point people who are interested in joining.
  • For our next meetings, we could invite Diana from the Living Wage campaign to talk to the group.
  • We should run another poll to check everyone’s availability for PRAC meetings, as there are some members interested in attending but Wednesdays do not work for their schedules.

5. Upcoming events:

  • There’s a chance of setting up an information table at the “Protein for the People” event being organized by the New Westminster District Labour Council in Port Coquitlam. The event will be on April 18 at the Seaview School, from 11 AM-2 PM.
  • The Speaker Series event in Vancouver will be on April 29 at the Vancouver General Hospital, if anyone is interested in attending or volunteering, please make sure to register on the website and get in touch.

6. Tasks:

Melanie will relay the information from the group’s discussion on the hiring process to Trish.

Gil and Trish will contact Raise the Rates to organize a meeting with people living on welfare to chat about the PMB campaign.

Sharnelle will ask her friend to help out with some pointers on promotions and send along what she finds out.

Doug will ask with his BCGEU friends to see if they want to help promote the campaign.

Sharnelle will pass around the campaign info to other Neighbourhood Houses so they help promote it.

Jennifer can draft the promo template email, based on Trish’s recent email

Gilwill forward Trish’s email to Jennifer.

Gil will prepare a poll to test availability.

Amy offered to help at the event in Port Coquitlam.

Closing.