Hawaiian Caucus and chatting?

Immediately after I finished this week's live webcast, I checked my e-mail and found out that we will be presenting to the Hawaiian caucus at 1pm on Thursday, January 29. The room is yet to be determined and may even change the day of.

We'll see if we can live-stream the event. Be sure to check out our twitter updates so that you know whether or not we'll be live-streaming and to also find out which room we'll be in.

Although I knew we had the capability to do so, I never realized until it was too late, that people were chatting online during our live-streaming webcast. I thought I'd paste here part of that chat conversation between two of our viewers.

Welcome to the 'kupuaina' room
18:16 Kanani : "are you in agreement with the Gov and AG regarding the upcoming US supreme court etc he just went to town and spoke very forcefully, but at the end I repeated
18:17 Glen V in PuertoRico : I would say, IMHO, that his political career, at least in terms of Kanaka Maoli voters, is all downhill because of his association with Linda Lingle
18:17 Kanani : myself and said you did not answer my question and repeated and he said YES he supports the GOV
18:18 Glen V in PuertoRico : wow
18:18 Glen V in PuertoRico : of course he supports the governor
18:18 Glen V in PuertoRico : what a shame
18:19 Kanani : but I wanted everyone to hear him because he skirted a yes or no answer they made me wait a long time to speak to him and he was made aware of my question ahead
18:19 Glen V in PuertoRico : that was good that you called in to ask
18:20 Glen V in PuertoRico : i have seen many people post messages in different forums asking to know his poosition or saying, please ask him what he things
18:20 Glen V in PuertoRico : thinks
18:20 Glen V in PuertoRico : but it is no surprise that he 100 percent backs the opinion of Linda Lingle
18:20 Glen V in PuertoRico : for any matter
18:21 Glen V in PuertoRico : he can join her sinking ship i guess
18:21 Glen V in PuertoRico : in terms of these issues
18:21 Glen V in PuertoRico : the only people who are happy about what they are doing seems to be people who think like the Grassroots Institute

The Hawai'i legislature and postcard counting

Tomorrow is the opening day of the legislature. We're going down there and we'll be sure to talk with some state representatives and senators tomorrow. It'll definitely be a full and busy day, but it will be great. I'm sensing a general feeling from people that after today's American presidential inauguration ceremony, that there is high hopes for the future with Barack Obama as a world leader. It's definitely inspiring.

I finally got around to counting the postcards. I want to thank everyone who participated with us and signed/filled-out postcards. Without giving out a specific number, I'm happy to announce that we collected well over 1,000 postcards.


There are however, some senatorial districts where we could use more signed postcards.
- Senatorial District 2 which encompasses: Waiakea Uka, Kalapana, Volcano, Kahuku (Big Island). For Senatorial District 2, we had no filled-out postcards.
- Senatorial District 16 which encompasses: Pacific Palisades, Pearl City, Waimalu, Upper 'Aiea, 'Aiea Heights.

Anyway, we began mailing out some postcards. A very generous person donated two books of stamps to our efforts on Saturday. Unfortunately, we don't know the name of the person, but we're extremely thankful. In lieu of stamps, many other people donated their loose change and then some, which will definitely be a tremendous help in covering our postage costs. Mahalo nui to all our supporters. We'll continue to mail out cards each day as part of our strategy to remind our legislators that this is an issue that we want them to deal with quickly.

As a reminder, on Saturday (1/17/09) the Kupu'aina Coalition conducted a drive to help elevate the voice of people who want the ceded lands protected. Below is a picture of Jocelyn Doane talking with a supporter and having her filling out two of our cards. One to her state representative and the other to her state senator.


Jocelyn, among with a number of other volunteers, canvassed Kapi'olani Park to get signatures of supporters.

Below is a picture of the Kupu'aina Coalition booth at Kapi'olani Park. Here, we had five people using laptops at a stationary place for supporters to go to and sign postcards.