Booth in a Button

Alliance for the Separation of School & State
1071 N. Fulton St.
Fresno, CA 93728

Booth in a Button
[conclusion]

How it works together

Clicking on a photo enlarges it.
	Marshall Fritz asks a passerby, "Have you take the little 5-question Education Opinion Survey?" The question is phrased so the standard answer is, "No." It is easy to get a stranger to say "No." Then Fritz says, "If you take the little survey, we will put a genuine dot reflecting your opinion on the Big Dot Board. By the end of the conference, a pattern will emerge. Optional: If the group has a political leaning, you can add, "...and we can compare that pattern to the one we got at the N.E.A. (National Education Association).
	It is common to have three to five people taking the Survey at the same time. Time flies for booth volunteers because they are so busy handing people Surveys, scoring and putting on dots on the board, and telling those who answered mostly "Parents" that they qualify to consider signing the Proclamation.
	Almost half the people "hear" separation of church and state no matter how clearly you say school and state. Here, Marshall Fritz is pointing at the "school" in the sign as he tells a booth visitor that the booth is sponsored by the "Alliance for the Separation of School & State."
	It's fun to have two Dot Charts--one that you are putting adhesive dots onto, and another that shows the pattern at the National Education Association convention. You can point out that most of their delegates thought that government should make final decisions. The high numbers in the center (Other) is because many of them wanted teachers to make the decisions, and they are in denial that they are government workers. Notice the dots are two colors. This adds some intrigue to the Big Dot Chart. At a home schooling conference, a good dot split is "Blue dots if you have homeschooled for more than one year, Red dots if you homeschooled for one year or less." At a County Fair or in a mall, you might have three colors, Democrat, Republican, and Other. If you do a news release to the local newspaper, or if a TV news crew is covering the event, the different scoring patters for the different colors will pique their interest. Also note...keep plenty of pens and Survey/Proclamations handy, and some freebie material to give away.
	You may want to have some audio tapes, video tapes, and CDs available for sale. The Alliance provides them at a super discount so you can have a "show special" and sell them for 1/2 price.
	The t-shirt is designed for infants and toddlers. Mothers and grandmothers coo when they see it. It includes our web address so the little tyke is constantly advertising for us.
	The Proclamation Placard is designed to be enlarged to 11x17, then laminated or mounted on foam- or gator-board.