On Friday, January 16th, about 25 committed conservatives braved the bitter cold to meet at the Community Center in North Berwick for an informational meeting on The Republican Project. RP Director Ryan McCabe organized and MC’d the event. Republican Project CEO Dean Scontras made a presentation of the purpose, goals, and progress to date of the project. Executive Director Ted Ropple also updated the group on recent enhancements to web site as well as planned future enhancements. Ryan spoke of the effort currently underway to organize and appoint project leaders in each county.
The group was also informed of the RP’s pending press release (released 1/17) taking a strong and firm stand in opposition to the bill just introduced by State Senator Dennis Damon to redefine marriage to include same sex marriages. Dean reiterated "the Maine State Republican Party platform is quite clear on this issue. So are the tenets of the Republican Project. Therefore, we will work at a grassroots level, through our electronic medium and within our membership, to work against Senator Damon's effort.”
An interesting and encouraging note on the gathering was that the majority of attendees were under 30 years old. Getting young people involved has been an issue of concern party wide, and the Republican Project is definitely addressing this issue, using technology that includes such social networking tools as Facebook and Twitter.
Three young ladies from the Bangor area even made the trip to the event! Allison Wicks, Lisa Eldridge, and Betsy Walker are students at Husson College and the University of Maine in Orono. They had heard about The Republican Project by making contact with Ryan on the Facebook group known as Children of Reagan. They were extremely enthusiastic and pledged to get an event going in the Bangor area for leaders of The Republican Project to address their fellow students.
The meeting demonstrated the tremendous success the Project has achieved in a very short time, simply by utilizing technology and the talents of its supporters.
