Reply #2: Yes! I went last year, will go again this year.

[Cos]

I went to DemFest 2005 last year in Austin - that's where I met Velma and first heard about DU, in fact :)

I missed the original (which was then called "DeanFest") in 2004 due to a last minute change of venue. The new site was only about 30 minutes away from where they'd planned to, but I was planning to shuttle back and forth between Falcon Ridge Folk Festival and DeanFest, and the difference between a 5 minute drive and a 35 minute drive made it impractical.

Anyway, DemocracyFest 2005 was superb. One full day or great campaign training sessions - on strategy, voter targeting, fundraising, media, etc.. One full day of great speakers - Jim Hightower, Howard Dean, Molly Ivins, Dave van Os, Chris Bell, that woman with the anti-DeLay blog, ... And Friday was all DFA networking and breakout groups about things like running meetings, organizing local DFA groups, legal issues, and so on. I had a great time, learned a lot, met lots of people, and am thoroughly glad I went.

I do plan to go again this year. It'll be a different group putting it on but I expect them to do a great job.

DFA, being a real grassroots organization, doesn't actually plan DemocracyFest from the national headquarters. Instead, what happened is that a group of volunteers set out on their own to create the event, calling themselves "My Vote is My Voice", and now each year they ask regional or statewide DFA groups to submit their DemocracyFest proposals, then have the general DFA community vote to pick one. DFA national cooperates and supports the conference, but it's planned and executed each year by a different local grassroots group, under the leadership and coordination of MViMV, who are independent of DFA. Last year, Democracy for Texas's proposal won. This year, it'll be the California coalition of DFA groups.