By: W. E. Messamore

With all the Tea Parties being set up, many patriots have asked how they can begin organizing their own Tea Party.  There are several independent Tea Parties, including a mass nationwide Tea Party on April 15th.  Although this website is for the purpose of organizing well coordinated, but decentralized Tea Parties from sea to shining sea, on July 4th, 2009, here are some pointers to help you all organize and plan Tea Parties for any event.

If you are a Tea Party coordinator from any location or date, you can contact our event planner at aaron@peacpac.com to discuss details and to promote our common cause.

1. Check to see about existing protests

Use Google, Meetup, and Facebook to see if there are already protests being planned in your area. Also be sure to check the lists of registered Tea Party protests at ReTeaParty forums. If there’s already a protest being planned in your area, help out with the remaining steps in this list by contacting the protest planners and offering whatever help you can as well as by taking the initiative on your own to turn out as many people as possible. If there is no protest in your area, proceed to:

2. Pick a Location

On July 4^th, you’ll be joined by protesters all over America.  Choose a time that will be suitable for the most people. For us, July 4^th is time to Tea Party all day.

Choose a location that is publically visible. Check your local statutes for rules about large public gatherings and see to it that you don’t rub shoulders with local law enforcement by breaking any laws (use the Internet or phonebook to get the contact information of a pertinent office in your local government that you can check in with about your event).

3. Promote, Promote, Promote!

You want to work really hard at this part to make sure your event isn’t a disappointment. Here are some things you should do:

• Register your event on ReTeaParty.com so that people can find out about it and no one tries to plan a duplicate event because they didn’t know about yours.

• Start a Meetup group, Facebook group, or preferably, an independent website with all of the relevant information about the event. On each group’s page, be sure to encourage people to invite their friends, family, and co-workers as well as to help you promote the event by doing the following along with you:

• Contact your local radio hosts, local newspapers, local television stations, and bloggers in your area and ask them to announce the time and location of your protest. You may want to prepare a press release to announce your event to these media outlets. It’s easy- learn how here and here. Also announce your event on Craigslist under Community –> Politics.

• Find local organizations whose members would be interested in attending and contact them to announce the event and invite them. For example, find and contact local libertarian and conservative Meetup groups, your local Republican Party, and your local Libertarian Party.. Be creative and connect with your local community. The more groups you contact and energize about your event, the bigger and better your event will be.

4. Prepare and Plan

• Find speakers to assign short 5 minute slots for speech-making about the ills in Washington D.C. and what we can do to limit government growth and excess. Set guidelines for subject and content that make sense and seem appropriate. Look for prominent local leaders like state legislators to do the speaking.

• Make signs with BIG LETTERS that send a clear message to the media and to Washington. Be very sure that your signs are spelled correctly. Some suggestions for slogans:

• • Chains You Can Be Deceived In
  • Don’t Tread On Me
  • Bailout The Constitution
  • Stimulate Freedom
  • Now Who’s Going To Bailout Washington?
  • Congress Passed A Stimulus Package And All I Got Was This Lousy Deficit
  • Who Is John Galt?
  • No More Pork
  • Say No To Socialism
  • No Taxation Without Deliberation
  • American Tea Party 2009
  • (And use your imagination to come up with more)

5. Protest!

• Be cheerful and energetic. Engage the media and reporters- answer questions, give interviews, and let them take pictures.

• Bring a sign in sheet with three columns for names, e-mails, and phone numbers. Ask people to sign in as they arrive for the protest, and make an announcement at the end asking them to sign in as they leave if they haven’t already. This will be a list of people you can count on for support to mobilize electoral action in 2010 when it comes time to kick the people out of D.C. who voted for the stimulus package or the Wall Street bailout.

• Remind the attendees that protests are useful, but only if they motivate further action and stimulate further thought and engagement on the part of those present. We have to fight for a principled stand on government and we have to see these protests as a rehearsal for the political battle to come in 2010 (for more on that, read The American Tea Party 2009, Goals, Objectives, and Principles)

6. Wrap up

• Stay behind as everyone is leaving and make sure no trash gets left behind. Seriously. Leaving a bunch of garbage behind after a protest creates a negative perception of our movement.

• E-mail everyone who signed in and thank them for their support. Remind them that there is more to come and that we have to suit action to words by fighting the good fight in the polling booth this 2010. Challenge them to “Put your ballot where your mouth is,” and only vote for candidates that pledge to limit the size of government (and not to take that pledge seriously at all if it is contradicted by the candidate’s previous record in office).

• Contact all the media outlets you contacted earlier and send them reports, attendance estimates, pictures, and video.

• Enjoy a nice cup of tea or a cold beer and relish the fun you just had while readying yourself for the fight to come.