Drive for Change: Day Two

Day Two of my Drive for Change weekend went well! A little chaotic, but that’s to be expected when an all-volunteer organization gets 500 new people.
I got up early and showed up way early for the orientation event (several people told me yesterday that it was a good idea to do so). I was so early that I got put to work manning the sign in table! It was really crazy — loads of people and I had to check them off their list and give them their assignments for the day. My poor little quasi-introvert brain nearly fried. I got spelled by another volunteer, though, so it all turned out all right.
Then I was hoping to do some office work, but after waiting around to see who needed what, it turned out that they didn’t have anything, and wanted me to canvass. So I headed out — only to find (along with another carload of people) that our assigned location was out of packets because so many volunteers had come today! Which was awesome, cos yay volunteers, but kind of a drag since it meant we’d driven out there for nothing. I considered going to see a movie as a way to kill time until the afternoon data-entry shift at HQ, but the only movie with a convenient start time was one I’d already seen. D’oh. So, after taking some pix in downtown Reno, I went back to the office and hung out until they had some work for me to do. I spent the next ten hours doing data entry, except for a break to go to a potluck.
I met a really interesting woman at the potluck — she has done loads of canvassing, including canvassing in Salt Lake City for the Equal Rights Amendment! — and she told me that in her experience, the campaign with the best lists wins and canvassing (and the associated data entry) is all about lists. So it’s a very, very important activity for a campaign! It lets the campaign figure out which voters to concentrate on to make sure they get out to the polls and vote. She got me pretty pumped up, and I’m going to see if I can get out tomorrow to canvass for the morning shift instead of waiting around to see if there’s office work.
One last thing: I now have my first-ever piece of presidential campaign schwag. I’ve never been much of a fan of presidential bumper stickers or anything like that, but I saw a guy with this awesome Obama button, and when I complimented it, he gave me one! And I figured I might as well wear one since I’m working on the campaign and am a supporter, right?