June 2012
CHAPTERSMONTHLY
Two of the HPA’s very favorite campaigns are scheduled to make an exciting reappearance this summer! Accio Books and Wizard Rock the Vote have seen enormous success in their past incarnations, largely due to the support and energy provided by chapters just like yours!
Summer Slammers: The HPA’s favorite campaigns are back! By Kitzia Dan & Becca Simpson
Hey chapters! June’s here, which means that it’s time for another newsletter! This month, we’re discussing a topic that is at the heart and soul of the Harry Potter Alliance: Campaigns! In this issue, we’ll specifically talk about two campaigns held by the Harry Potter Alliance in previous years that are due to relaunch this summer: Accio Books and Wizard Rock The Vote (WRTV). While there are many other exciting campaigns to talk about, these two have been cornerstones of the HPA and are crucial to several of our goals as an organization; increasing literacy and the availability of books to people of all ages and encouraging people to exercise their right to show their opinion in the form of an election.
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Most importantly for you as a chapter organizer, both of these campaigns are huge on chapters involvement. The past incarnations of both of these campaigns relied heavily on the support of chapters just like yours to make them as awesome as possible, and the same will be true this time around! With the 2012 elections coming up, WRTV is going to be a great campaign to get people engaged and civically active. Both Harry and the Potters and the Whomping Willows will be touring and at these events, members of the HPA (hopefully a lot of you!) will volunteer to register voters. Stay tuned to know if they’re stopping near you as we will release a master list of concert dates very soon! Please remember as you participate in voter registration that
the HPA is a non-partisan organization and does not support a political candidate. The important thing to remember is how important voting is for each and every person. The second campaign that will be discussed in this newsletter is Accio Books, a drive to gather books for those who may not have them and encourage literacy both in our local communities as well as nationally. This year Accio Book will be launched during LeakyCon in August and will span through September (don't worry school chapters!). This month’s newsletter serves as an introduction to Accio Books as well as Wizard Rock the Vote. It also features plenty of tips on how to bring these campaigns to your communities. Stay tuned for more!
CHAPTERSMONTHLY June 2012
FEATUREDCHAPTER The University of Arizona chapter has had quite a bit of success with fundraising in the past! We asked them what they found worked best for them. Here’s what they said:
“Our chapter has had a lot of success with Bake Sales. We ask our members to bake or buy any goods they are able to contribute, and book a spot near our Student Union through our university's event planning office. On our campus the best hours seem to be between 10 am and 2 pm, but this may vary on other campuses, so each chapter should pay attention to "rush hours". We borrow a table from another organization on campus that we are on good terms with, and advertise the event over Facebook. Typically we charge anywhere from 50 cents for cookies to $2 for fancier cupcakes. We make an average of $80 per sale. It's important to note that the key to our success is that our members donate the goods to sell, so that everyone we make is 100% profit.” - Janae Phillips; CO for University of Arizona
Accio Books 101: What is Accio Books? By Anna Bold & Katie Twyman
Accio Books is an annual book drive that serves to collect extra books and donate them to children with limited access to works of literature. While many books are donated to a location selected by the HPA, chapters are encouraged to pick a local host, such as a school or organization. Over the last three years, HPA members have collected over
55,000 books, sending them to Rwanda and the Mississippi Delta, and even building an “Imagine Better Library” in Brooklyn, NY. Accio Books was part of the Illiteracy Horcrux in last year’s Deathly Hallows Campaign. It is an important event that serves to promote reading and to get books to those that may not have them in their homes.
While children’s books of all types are accepted during Accio Books, Harry Potter is certainly an obvious favorite. Pictured left is the collection of Harry Potter books at the Imagine Better library at the New Beginnings Charter School, AB’s 2011 donation site.
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There is a House Competition, in which you can earn points for your house by logging the number of donated books, as well as a Chapter Cup to see which Chapter can collect the most books. Donations could be collected in a variety of ways, from having you and your chapter members go through your own personal collections for any unwanted books to setting up donation boxes in public places like your school or your local library. Encourage others to clean out their bookshelves for any unwanted books! Books can be donated to any local organization, as long as they are not an organization that would resell those books, such as a thrift store. They can be any kind of book, not just children’s books or Harry Potter. In the past, Accio Books has taken place in the spring. This year, however, Accio Books will be kicking off in August during LeakyCon! This means that now is the time to begin planning! How many books can your chapter collect?
CHAPTERSMONTHLY June 2012
FEATUREDSTAFF Katie Twyman Hey there! My name is Katie, and I’ve been on the chapters team for almost two whole years! I really began to get involved with the HPA in the beginning of 2009, and I immediately fell in love with the chapters program. With the help of a new friend, I started my own community chapter in Minneapolis. Even that wasn’t enough to satiate my desire to get involved with the HPA! I joined the staff in August of 2010, and I’ve loved every second of my time with the HPA. My very favorite thing to do on the chapters team is adapting the campaigns that the HPA is launching for chapters. Aside from that, I’m the one that formats and designs this newsletter every month! Chapters are my favorite thing about the Harry Potter Alliance, and I can’t imagine doing anything more enjoyable on staff. As always, feel free to contact me. I’m especially eager to hear about anything you would like to see for chapters at this year’s LeakyCon! katiet@thehpalliance.org
Carpe Futurum’s Ten Tips for Accio Books 1. Have a pre-Accio Books party to wrap boxes to put throughout the community or your school. You can also make signs or flyers about the book drive. 2. Have your members go through their shelves for books they no longer want and ask friends and family for book donations. 3. Contact the Harry Potter groups in your area or Harry Potter fans at events or wrock concerts and let them know the book drive is going on. Donating a book or two is an easy way to get involved and a great way to help the community. 4. Visit thrift stores and used book stores to buy some of your favorite books cheap (and maybe support a charity or independent bookseller at the same time). Make it an outing for your whole chapter. You could raise funds through a bake sale ahead of time and spend that money on books. 5. Call around or visit lots of different places in your community that could possibly use free books: community centers, schools, day care centers, retirement homes, court buildings, libraries, military rehab or veteran centers, hospitals, prisons, homeless shelters, donation centers, and more. Get these places lined up early so you know what types of books to collect in your book drive (large print books to retirement homes, for example). 6. If there are no places nearby that will accept your books without reselling them, think outside the box. You could mail books to soldiers overseas who are from
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your area through AnySoldier or Paperback swap, for example. 7. Give your chapter members some extra incentives. Hold a house cup competition within your chapter and make a scorecard for every member of your chapter so they can keep track of how many books they’ve collected. Or offer a Harry Potter-related prize to the person in your chapter who collects the most books. Treats like buttons or magnets or even bookmarks for everyone who participates is a great idea too. 8. Have a book sorting party where you count all your books and decide what books will go to what charities (if you have more than one place you’re giving to). This will get all your members involved, even the ones who didn’t have any books. Play Wrock and serve treats and they’ll remember the fun and maybe have some books to bring next year. 9. Leave enough time after the book collection to have all your books sent out or delivered to the charities before Accio Books ends (otherwise your points don’t count). Giving the books to the people in person is also a great way to get everyone in your chapter involved and your chance to see the people who will benefit from all your efforts. 10. Along with the books you donate, include an information sheet about the Harry Potter Alliance and your local chapter, including contact information in case they want to send a thank you or contact you in the future about other opportunities to work with their organization.
CHAPTERSMONTHLY June 2012
Making “Wrock the Vote� Truly Rock By Pam Harris
So, HPA is taking another stab at Wrock the Vote this summer. A key part of Wrock the Vote is helping new voters with their registration. Never done voter registration before? Never fear. Here are some tips my chapter learned from wrocking the vote last time around.
Know who is coming The second I got to our event, people were coming up to me saying that they were there to help with Wrock the Vote, and asked me for the materials. I had no idea these people were coming. If you know who is planning to attend, you can arrange to have materials for all your volunteers and you can plan shifts so that the same person isn't doing Wrock the Vote all night. (Let's not forget, as devoted as we are to HPA, this is still a wrock show and we want to enjoy the bands!) Get the word out early
Alex Carpenter was nice enough to do an announcement for us, but as he was the last to perform, it didn't really do us much good. Make sure the bands know early in the evening that you're doing Wrock the Vote and ask if they will do an announcement. If each band does one, people can't forget that Wrock the Vote is in the house, and maybe someone will come over to register. Also, depending on the venue, they might even let you do the announcement. Have your materials ready The wrockers are supposed to have them, but just in case they don't, be prepared. Alex was supposed to have our materials, and I didn't get to talk to him until half way through the show. Fortunately, I had the materials with me so we were able to get going right away. Also, having the information on the requirements for each state with you is very helpful. I forgot ours, and someone had a question the materials would have answered.
She decided to register at home instead of through us. Don't have too much going on The venue for our wrock show was complete chaos. There were over a hundred people there, and we were four people trying to do Chase Giving Challenge, Wrock the Vote, sell our own merch, and one of my members had this poster that just had to be signed by all the wrockers there. If you try to do too much at once, something is going to suffer. Prioritize or find a simpler way to do it all. We more or less each had one job, and we concentrated on that. Also, if you have a lot going on, know when to cut your losses. If there is too much going on and you're not going to be effective, it's OK to acknowledge it. There are plenty of opportunities to register people to vote outside of wrock shows. Check out this blog for more tips on Wrock the Vote.
NEWCHAPTERS DIAGON ALLEYCATS OF OKLAHOMA of Oklahoma City, oK MUGGLES SPREADING MAGIC of Tuscaloosa, AL THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN MUGGLES of Salt Lake City, UT HPA-CCA of Oakland, CA THE CHC GRIFFINDOORS of Philadelphia, PA The Rocky Mountain Muggles have gotten off to a great start, hosting a book drive that benefitted a local library!
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THE HPA FRANKLIN of Franklin, TN
CHAPTERSMONTHLY June 2012
Ladies and gentlemen and all variations therein, we have a new Chapters Director here at the Harry Potter Alliance! After a year of working on the chapters team, Becca Simpson (pictured left) will now be replacing Sara Danver as chapters director for the HPA.
A Letter From the Director By Becca Simpson, Chapters Director
Hello Chapter Organizers and Members!
My name is Becca, and you may recognize me from an email I may have sent you or more anonymously, the galleon days every week. I am extremely pleased and honored to have been chosen as the new Chapters Coordinator for the HPA and can only hope to live up to the expectations Becca has tons and reputation that Sara put in place (also of experience never fear, Sara is still going to be on senior with chapters, staff and working with chapters in a lot of and she is sure to be an incredible capacities). I would like to take a few asset to the HPA. moments-or sentences rather- to introduce myself to all of you. I am a junior at the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University and got involved with the HPA after I attended LeakyCon in 2009. I was the CO of a chapter in the Phoenix Metropolitan area and joined the chapters department in April of 2011. It has been one of the best experiences of my life to date. All of us on the Chapters Staff understand and realize how crucial chapters are to the HPA. You guys are the real Dumbledore’s Army - youth and adults joining to fight the forces of evil in this world. You see an opportunity to make a difference, and you take it. We are here to help you make that difference and make sure that you all get all of the resources/information you need to make that happen. You all are AWESOME, and we appreciate your efforts. You play a fundamental role in the HPA. That said, this is another month and another newsletter full of great ideas on how to participate in two of our really exciting campaigns that will be going on this summer: Wizard Rock the Vote and Accio Books! Some of you may just be hearing of these and some of you may remember them quite well. Either way, we hope that this newsletter gives you some starting points on how to begin working on these campaigns. Another huge part of this process is input. If you have any questions, needs, or comments, please don’t hesitate to email me at Becca@thehpalliance.org. I am here to listen and help in whatever way possible. :) -Becca Simpson
If you have any questions or comments regarding partnerships or any other subjects, please email chapters@thehpalliance.org - we’ll be happy to answer your questions in a timely manner!
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