US Senate education pledge program started

03/11/03 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

Rocketeers! It's time for the next phase in our campaign to win a exemption for rocketry. A web site has been created to coordinate sending educational “Care Packages” to our Senators. One of the issues that has hurt us in recent years is a mis-understanding and lack education about our sport. The “Care Package” effort aims to correct this problem by sending our US Senators items that will give them a better understanding of hobby rocketry.

US Senate Education “Care Package” site The process is easy. Go to the web site and find your state. Look for an item that has not been pledged or sent. Send an email to the webmaster with your pledge. Next follow the link to the item you (or your club, it can be a group effort) pledged to buy and purchase it with a ship to address for your Senator (important!). Make sure to fill out the comment or gift field so the Senator knows why they received the item! We have an example note on the web site.

When you receive your email receipt from the vendor forward it to the web master, Jimmy Yawn at jyawn@sfcc.net . Jimmy will then update your pledge to show �fufilled.�

Items being pledged include:

The October Sky Mobile Video

Handbook of Model Rocketry by G. Harry Stine

Model Rocket Design and Construction by Tim Van Milligan (Apogee Components)

A Quark Star model rocket kit from Doug Pratt (Pratt Hobbies)

Tim Van Milligan has kindly offered to ship 100 copies of Model Rocket Design and Construction books to Doug Pratt and sell them for $18.00 a copy instead of the usual $24 price. By ordering through the Pratt Hobbies web site you can purchase both the Quark Star kit and Tim's book at the same time! Doug, additionally has offered to include your FAX or email in the package to your Senator. If you want to send Doug a FAX for insertion into your package please call 1-866-522-1251 to send your document. It will be forwarded to Doug. We do recommend that you send a FAX or email to Tim or Doug explaining to your Senator why they should support Senator Enzi's bill.

Please keep your total package below $50, otherwise the Senator may be unable to accept the package due to government rules. There are plenty of �Care Packages� to go around! Also, remind your Senator to contact Candice Cotton (224 - 3424) on Senator Enzi's staff to further discuss this issue if they have questions.

We need to educate our representatives about our hobby! Do it now or the ATF will do it for us.

If all of these items are pledged, paid for, and shipped in a very brief time � like immediately, if not sooner, then it is likely that a media-worthy event could occur. With help from rocketeers in the Washington, DC area, we can possibly assemble rocketeers and community groups (clubs, scouts, church, schools) to hand-deliver the goodies and give great sound bites and visual images for the media.