By George Friday

It's time to start planning to send a delegation to the US Social Forum in Atlanta, Ga. June 27-July 1!

Another World Is Possible! Share your vision, imagination, strategy, insights, frustrations, faith and plans with sisters and brothers with similar hopes and struggles. Join thousands of like-minded individuals from hundreds of organizations around the country who know that building relationships, debating, planning and working together is the only way to truly realize our shared goals as we build a global community working to achieve justice at all levels.

If you visit the website, www.ussocialforum.org, you can learn more about the background of the conference and other events that have helped build this social forum movement. The website also has information about how you can help by organizing a speaker, helping fund travel for low-income participants, and of course by encouraging as many people as possible to attend.

Maybe you've already made plans to join the activists and organizers for this important gathering, but if you're like many of us, too often we put off attending to the details. So take this opportunity to shift that pattern. If you begin planning now, you'll have a strong and fully-funded delegation by mid-May!

I've put together some suggestions for groups which want to send a delegation on how to do so. You can check that out at IPPN's website, www.ippn.org, or contact us if you want us to send you a copy.

IPPN National Gathering

It has been several years since IPPN held a national gathering, and we have decided that the best time and place to hold one is at the USSF.

Consider the possibilities for promoting and creating promising conditions for independent politics over the next 3-5 years. What education tactics and organizing techniques do you feel are most effective for initiating broad-based progressive political action with key electoral victories? What will it take for more independent candidates to run and win local and statewide elections? What is the best role for IPPN in creating, realizing and sustaining such victories? Your thoughts are needed and welcome at IPPN's two-day gathering, tentatively projected as happening June 29th and 30th during the USSF.

We value the analysis and insight of our members and supporters and need you to help us plan the next phase of our work. We may have the best conditions in decades for needed victories as far as electoral reform and independent politics. The US electorate--not only progressives--has had enough of what is clearly an electoral system that is seriously flawed and toxic with corporate domination. And there are millions of potentially progressive voters who still need a reason to participate at all. Our challenge is to help craft effective strategies and actions to move us closer to the kind of civic engagement that is democracy at its best.

We're holding our National Gathering in conjunction with the USSF because we recognize that the setting allows for deeper and broader analysis and strategic planning. There are lessons to be learned from leaders of progressive parties in countries like Brazil, Mexico, Canada, South Africa and Germany, countries with progressive parties that have successfully organized to build civic engagement and participation at local levels. We've planned panel presentations and discussions, workshops, and training sessions to surface current and future opportunities, decide on focus and implementation, and build skills to build and sustain an effective base.

Our hope is to leave the conference with plans for 2008 and beyond that reflect the best of our shared strategies and will result in lasting and needed progress. We hope to see you there!

George Friday is the IPPN National Coordinator. She can be contacted at ippn@igc.org or 862-668-8172.