Grand Strand Bloggers

Today is the day we are setting aside as the “donation and new media blitz” day for the CREATE South conference. It is our conference about the conjunction of new media and creativity, held in Myrtle Beach SC on April 25th, 2009. If you can take a few minutes and spare the dollars to donate, that would be great. Regardless, if you can just make a post about the conference on your blog, on Twitter or Facebook or any of the many other social media sites, we would appreciate every bit of attention that can be generated. We’re trying to throw both the new media community in general and the residents of the Carolinas a big party, so please help make it a barn burner. Thank you!

For those into some grassroots sports, the Pallmetto State Rollergirls will have a bout this Sunday afternoon February 22nd at the 65th Avenue YMCA in Myrtle Beach. I try to go to as many of these as I can. This will be much more convenient to those who live in the city than when the bouts were at the skating rink halfway to Loris. Come support local women who are making it happen.

My town has a new mayor, Ms. Alys Lawson. This is still unofficial as it has not been certified, but it has been reported by the Sun Times and WMBF . By winning 51% of the vote, a runoff is not necessary. Congratulations, Mayor Lawson.

Today, Tuesday December 9th, is election day for the mayoral contest in the city of Conway SC. I strongly urge you to get out and vote if you are a resident. This is the democracy we fight for elsewhere, it should be worth 10 minutes of your time at a polling station to pick the person to hold a position with more direct influence on you than almost anyone you’ll ever vote for.

I’ll make a post later tonight that will either be about who the winner is, or which two candidates are going to the runoff. It’s been fun doing the hyperlocal coverage of the race. I’ve learned a lot of lessons and had a blast doing it. I’d strongly urge other Grand Strand Bloggers to sign up to do this on the next set of elections. I’d love to see people doing the same thing for the city of Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Surfside, Litchfield and any other incorporated town in the area. Bring the democracy, people!

The Sun News has a story covering Monday’s mayoral debate in Conway. The Sun News also has a summary of positions and background from each of the candidates as a helpful guide. Election day is Tuesday December 9th so time is running out on making this decision, citizens of Conway SC.

Last night , December 1st, there was a debate of the candidates in the special election for mayor in my town of Conway SC. As a part of my coverage of this election, I present the video of the event last night. I apologize for anything that isn’t quite right. I did my best to clean up the audio and get the minimal editing done as quickly as I could. Since the election is in exactly one week from today, I did not have the luxury of time to get things perfected.

This video is in the public domain. If you click the triangular icon in the bottom right you can email a link or embed this video on your own site. You are free to download this, distribute it how you like, burn it to DVDs and give to your friends or whatever. I’ll be spending part of tonight trying to get some DVDs burned to give back to the JR-12 organization. I’d be highly gratified if there are some debate viewing parties this weekend around town.

Thanks to Jim Neal of JR-12 for inviting me to cover the debate, to JR-12 as a whole for sponsoring the event, to Whittemore Park Middle School for hosting the debate and for letting me tap into the soundboard for my secondary backup audio recording, to Tonya Brown for moderating and for all four of the candidates for participating.

There is one more week until the election. Please continue forwarding any information you can find about the race, and please leave any comments here on the blog. Thanks for your attention, citizens of Conway.

There is a new story in the Sun News about the Conway mayoral race, mostly focusing on the issue of growth in town.

Don’t forget, Conway residents, the mayoral debate is tomorrow, December 1st at 6:30 PM at Whittemore Park Middle School. The school is located on Wright Boulevard at Rhue Street. All the details I know are in the previous post.

I had a grand plan for hyper-local coverage of the Conway mayoral election but things have been quite slow. There hasn’t really been any news that I can find out of any of the campaigns so far. However, today I received the following as a comment and I wanted to repost it as its own item. I’ll be attending this mayoral debate and covering at the least, possibly recording or videotaping it.

—–

Thank you for accepting the invitation to participate in JR-12’s “city-wide” Town Hall Meeting-debate on December 1, 2008 at Whittemore Park Middle School. The school is located on Wright Boulevard at Rhue Street. The doors will open at 6 o’clock in the evening but the two-hour forum will not begin until 6:30.

In order for the forum to flow in a predictable order, respectfully, candidates’ opening and closing remarks should not to exceed five minutes. Pre-selected questions may be asked by the Moderator, Ms Tonya Brown, a general assignment reporter at WPDE TV; primarily, random questions from the audience will be encouraged. Each candidate may use the necessary time to respond directly to each question. Please remain mindful that if a candidate’s answer becomes repetitive, deviates from the question, or turns into a stump speech, a signal will be given indicating the candidate should cease speaking on that question immediately.

A set-aside period after the conclusion will give the candidates an opportunity to meet and greet the attending voters.

Based on JR-12’s past endeavors one should have very high expectations, yet, it is unpredictable how many will attend. This Town Hall Meeting-debate will be advertised as a “city-wide” event. Press releases will be sent to every news media that serve Conway. Nevertheless, each candidate should advertise this event, too, and invite their enthusiastic supporters. Banners and signs flaunted by demonstrating supporters are encouraged.

This event will be hosted by the leaders from the Jamestown, Racepath 1, and Racepath 2, precincts. These precincts united politically to form JR-12. The goal of this grassroots group is to empower the voters with truth and knowledge

Democratically,

Jim Neal,
Event Planner
(843) 248-6034

Don’t forget, if you are not already registered to vote in Conway, you have until tomorrow to register.

WBTW did a pair of stories about the Conway mayoral election. The first part covers Alys Lawson and Russ Calhoun and the second part covers Vivian Chestnut and Leslie McIver.

The Horry Independent ran a profile that has a snapshot of all four candidates.

I have yet to find campaign websites for three of the candidates. There is one for Leslie McIver but it appears to be from his previous mayoral run. If you find any, please send me a link to them.

Beginning now and continuing until the election on December 9th, I’ll do my best to cover all the news about the Conway SC special election for mayor. If there is a run off, I’ll continue forward until December 23rd. My goal is to post a link to every substantive story about the election, post notes about every single campaign event for all four candidates. I’d like to get a uniform set of questions worked up and answered by all the candidates and posted here, and if there is some form of a debate I’d like to film it and post the video here.

For everyone out there willing to be a stringer, please send any tips or pointers along. You can either leave them in comments on any of the posts or you can email them to grandstrandbloggers@gmail.com . While everyone is still high on democracy and participation from the general election, let’s keep that spirit alive for our mayoral contest. It’s sad that we are even having it, but since we must let’s bring vigor and a high turnout to our lovely little town.