DuxburyCARES will be organizing community outreach across every constituency in Duxbury. You can help in the following ways:
- Learn as much as you can about the project so you can speak fluently in support of it.
- Commit to recruiting friends and neighbors to attend community information event to inform voters about the details and benefits of this effort.
- Talk to every one of your neighbors about why it's so important for us to act now.
- Write a letter to the editor of a local paper (see below).
- Send postcards in advance of Town Meeting and the town election to remind citizens to vote.
- Sit at a table outside Foodies on a weekend day to spread accurate information about the project.
- Promote the cause with a bumper sticker on your car.
- Make phone calls to motivate friends to get to Town Meeting and the town election.
- VOTE at Town Meeting AND at the town election.
Attend a meeting of DuxburyCARES and/or contact us at DuxburyCARES@gmail.com and we'll help you get started.
Writing Letters to the Editor
“Unless someone like you CARES a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.” --Dr. Seuss
During the next several weeks, supporters of the school building project need to step their public and vocal and WRITTEN support for the project. This means letters to the editor in the Clipper, Reporter, Patriot Ledger, and Globe South. And this means YOU.
Please review these guidelines and contact information for letters to the editor to help you on your way:
- This is essentially FREE ADVERTISING for OUR cause! If your letter is printed, you have just gotten us several hundred dollars of space. ( A full page ad is about $1200.) People usually read letters to the editor; it is the first place many people turn. Your letter can influence those who haven’t been in a Duxbury school in 25 years!
- BREVITY SELLS. You may write a long letter, but people tend not to read. Try to keep it to 150-200 words if possible.
- GET the FACTS, and present them. Set the story straight in response to the negative letter writers. Go to http://www.duxburycares.org/ for the facts and a link to the school website for more facts and details. We need to be the ones defining the debate. Papers will print website addresses – so be sure to direct readers to the School Building information at the school website http://www.duxbury.k12.ma.us/ and/or http://www.duxburycares.org/ if appropriate to your letter.
- STAY POSITIVE – don’t get “snarky” or defensive.
- Consider focusing on ONE ASPECT. you won’t have room to include everything so work around a single theme.Think about the following topics:
The need: poor state of the buildings…use your own experience, backed by the list at the website. Have you gone on a tour, was your child’s Spanish class flooded and cancelled?
The benefits: both to our children, and to our community.
The savings: the over 43% state reimbursement…Plus no tax increases until 2014. Our town finance officials are coming up with an affordable payment plan for our town taxpayers.
The investment to our town and our property values. Your home is perhaps your single biggest investment. Schools are the biggest influence to property values and the reason people buy here.
What are our community values? Duxbury CARES about our: parks and open spaces, our rural character, our beaches Duxbury CARES about our Historical legacy. Duxbury has also ALWAYS CARED about education and our schools. People move here and choose us because of these values. However the physical state of our schools was recently ranked at the bottom with a 9 on a 1-10 scale by the evaluators and engineers we paid to do the feasibility study, compared to other schools in the state .
Duxbury Clipper - Weekly, comes out Wednesday
Editor: Justin Graeber 781-934-2811
ALL Submissions must be <span>received</span> by: no later than Monday at 11AM
Email: editor@duxburyclipper.com
Duxbury Reporter - Weekly, comes out Friday
Editor: Matthew Nadler 508-591-6628 Editorial Fax -781-837-4540 email: mnadler@cnc.com
Submissions of letters to editor must be <span>received</span> by: no later than Tuesday by 5PM
Press releases are due Monday by 1 PM
Editorial Opinions must be submitted no later than Monday 1 PM (subject to discretion of editor)
Email: mnadler@cnc.com
Patriot Ledger – Daily and weekend edition
Phone: 617-786-7026
Here are the letter guidelines from the editor of Ledger:
“Letters to the editor should be 150 words or less and include name, hometown (and phone number, which is used for verification and will not be published). We edit for clarity, taste and length. We do not publish anonymous letters, pen names or initials, poetry or copies of letters sent to third parties. All letters become property of The Patriot Ledger.
There are occasions on which we have to establish deadlines for letters on such matters as elections, town meeting articles and similar events to take place on a specific day. For such events, The Patriot Ledger must receive the letter one week before the event is to occur. Otherwise, there is no specific deadline for letters nor is there any guarantee they will be printed on any particular day.
When deemed appropriate, we do allow writers to mention an organization website (such as patriotledger.com) but not extended web addresses (such as patriotledger.com/opinions) as they become cumbersome.”
To announce events it must be submitted two weeks prior to the event. Press releases must be sent a week in advance, at their discretion whether or not they use.
Email: editpage@ledger.com News can be reported at newsroom@ledger.com
Globe South – Thursday edition of the Boston Globe
Letters should be written exclusively to the GLOBE and include name, address, and daytime phone number. They should be 200 words or preferably fewer (have a better chance of getting in)…and all are subject to editing.
Letters to the Editor, The Boston Globe, PO Box 55819, Boston MA 02205-5819
Email: letter@globe.com Fax: 617-929-2098
