"We are trying to build political power," Randy often says. "And you demonstrate power in two forms, money and people. We don't have much of the former, so we have to build on the latter."

So we can build our "people power" in two ways. Method 1: Recruit more people- this is the method that takes me to a different church every Wednesday and most Sundays and a lot of other days too. It's pretty crazy, but we're slowly increasing the number of people moving toward abolition. Method 2: Increase the skill set of the people that are already involved. Which brings me to last night.

I spent last night in Rutherford County conducting a lobby training. We've spent the last few months at TCASK developing a number of these trainings to increase the skills of our membership. We started with a weekend four hour public speaking workshop- that covers how to be an effective speaker, how to structure a presentation, in depth coverage of three crucial death penalty issues, making an ask, and handling tough questions. So far, we've been able to do that training in Nashville and MTSU and hope to schedule it in our other chapters in the coming months.

Our next training was the lobby training. We've started moving toward trainings that can happen on a weeknight, when our chapters normally meet anyway. So our lobby training is a two hour training which includes what lobbying is, Tennessee government 101, the universal rules of lobbying, and the structure of a lobby visit. Then we do a practical workshop to develop our new skills. We're also just finishing up a strategic planning training, which will hopefully fit in the same time frame as the lobby training. We'll go over the process of strategic planning, the key questions to ask, the difference between tactics and strategy, and how we access tactics. Then we'll make a strategic plan for the chapter to follow over the next 6 months or a year.

(Above- Shari Silberstein of EJUSA- one of the best trainers around- gittin 'er done)

The point is, that we want our members to be not only highly committed, intelligent, and active people, but also to be highly skilled in the art of political campaigns, and that's what our trainings are about.

And there are a few things I've learned from helping to develop these trainings. The most important is, have people put what they've been learning into practice right there. So, in the end of the speaker's training, participants give a 4-5 minute speech. The lobby trainees come and do a mock visit to a mock legislator. The people doing strategic planning literally make a strategic plan. So, you guys out there. Get together with your local group and lets figure out what training you could most use, and let's schedule it. And if you still find yourself saying "Well, I can't do that." That means that you haven't taken the TCASK training, or we should develop a new training to cover a new skill. And we will.