Here is a message posted by Tom Rohan, the HIP-WS State Coordinator to the hipws mailing list.
Date: Sat, 6 Jul 1996 02:50:07 -0700
From: Tom Rohan trohan@hemp.net
To: hipws@hemp.net
Subject: Final Tally...
I'm pretty tired but thought I should let you know the final tally on our
signature gathering efforts this year. We came in with over 61,000
signatures. Though this was far short of the needed 181,000 signatures it
was a great effort. To put this in perspective, in 1994 we got only about
25,000 signatures. I want to thank everyone who helped us to achieve this. I
worked side by side with many of you and was inspired by your spirit. And as
the signatures kept pouring in the last few days we were constantly taken
off guard by the numbers. To break the 60,000 remark was very impressive and
proves that we can do this thing. I say that because if we go with an
Initiative to the Legislature next year we will have from March to December
to get the same number of signatures. Considering that on a shoestring
budget and while building our organizational structure we managed to get
over 60,000 sigs in 3 months we should be able to reach our goal of 181,000
next year given the 9 month time frame.
But to make sure we do this we need all of you good volunteers to stick with
us and we need to build up and solidify our organization so we start off
strong next year and keep up the sustained effort for the long haul. We will
be posting our strategy for next year when we get it refined. For now we are
going to take a short break for the next few weeks to unwind a bit and catch
our breath. (But there will still be a HEMP 2000 meeting on July 17th!)
But for now I just want to thank all of you. You are the greatest!
Talk to you soon!
- Tom -