Editing 2011 Election - Lessons Learned (section)

=Preparation=
Activities required to get ready for the campaign.

*Good regional coordinators made a big difference.  They were the ones who recruited many of the candidates.  Probably need to give them more training on how to recruit candidates. The Campaign Director needs to follow up with them at least once a week.  Coordinators need to follow up with candidates and push them to get their signatures early.  Candidates should collect their signatures well before the writ is dropped. 

*Better candidate training, especially for new members.  Should consider having training sessions in cities other than Toronto where we have more than 6 candidates (e.g. Ottawa, London).  
*If they can't make it to a training sesssion (Caucus Meeting), should we endorse them as a candidate?  Maybe the Leader should interview them by phone and find out if they are able to give good answers to typical questions.  

*Have “flying squads” in each region who will collect signatures for paper candidates or help candidates where necessary. 

==Signs==
*Signs were not available until late in the campaign, two weeks before Election Day.  (They were ordered 3 1/2 weeks before Election Day.)  We need to know how many signs each candidate will use well in advance, maybe 2 months before Election Day. Brochures were ready for some candidates a little earlier, but not for all candidates.  The Candidate App asked for this information.  Regional Coordinators should confirm requests for signs and brochures before the order is placed, even for candidates who don't plan to campaign.  

*It's probably not a good idea to order signs and brochures before the candidate has collected their signatures.  

*Whats UR Sign was the company that printed 339 signs for us at a cost of $1,830 ($5.40 each, stakes included), much lower than any other quote I was able to get.  They also provided the best 'stakes,' 16"x1/4" steel rods that fit between the corplast layers and didn't bend in a strong wind. 

*The federal party has printed 100 signs with no candidate name that can be used for any campaign.  The Green Party has done the same in the past.  This makes sense in that we aren't asking people to vote for the candidate, but for the Party and our ideas.  Maybe we should consider this approach.  It could save a lot of money.  

*Probably better to get signs and brochures printed locally, to avoid shipping charges.  E.g. find suppliers in Ottawa, Hamilton, London, Thunder Bay, etc.  Maybe regional coordinators should get local quotes, or arrange with What’s UR Sign to ship to regional coordinators.  Or if we use one supplier, have a volunteer look after the shipping.  

==Brochures==
Paragon DPI printed [[Media:2011_Election_Sample_Pamphlet.pdf|brochures]] for us.  They were printed in three asses.  The first pass printed the inside in black ink with text standard for all candidates.  The second pass printed the outside green ink, again with the standard party information.  Paragon printed 21,000 of the inside and the green outside.  Then as each candidate indicated how many brochures they wanted and provided a photo and bio, anywhere from 50 to 2,000 brochures were overprinted on the outside in black ink. 

We printed 14,150 brochures for 19 candidates at a total cost of $3,075 ($0.078 each).  The remaining 6,850 were overprinted with a generic outside. [[Media:Party_2011_Election_Pamphlet.pdf|See it here]]