Immediately After Ratification

WHAT TO DO AFTER THE RATIFICATION MEETING AND

WHAT NOT TO DO

Immediately After Ratification

• All officeholders need to fill out their oath of office form and send it in. • All officeholders need to fill out the nondisclosure form and send it in. • The Chair needs to fill out the ratification forms and send them in.

• The Chair needs to create a binder for County Committee documents, including ratification forms, copies of oaths of office, NDAs, minutes and attendance sheets. • Committees often start with a small group of people, and members end up holding more

than one office. However, when more people join, the committee can vote for the extra office to be passed along to a different person. The Chairman swears in the new office holders.

The Whole Committee

• During or after the ratification meeting, the committee needs to set up a regular time for monthly meetings.

• Let us know your meeting time so that we can add it to the County Committee Contact page on our website.

• The committee needs to provide a phone number and email address so we can put it on the website and people interested in joining the committee can reach you. Many committees set up an easy to remember Gmail account, such as

“NewIllinoisPerry@gmail.com.” Make sure that MORE than one person has the password for this account.

• Decide who is going to put up and manage a Facebook page or other social media. MORE than one person must have access to the page.

• IMPORTANT: Please put our email addresses in your contacts so they will not end up in your spam folder: Chairman@NewIllinoisState.org and info@NewIllinoisState.org. If you are expecting an email from us and it hasn’t arrived, always check your spam and bulk files.

• All members who are not office holders but who are attending closed meetings of the committee need to sign the nondisclosure form. A copy stays with the committee and a copy gets sent in.

• Focus: time is of the essence. There’s no time to bicker; we need to establish standing. We have the right to alter and abolish government, but we need to be able to replace it.

Ongoing Activities

Besides presiding over meetings, the chairman is responsible for the following:

• Updating ratification forms when there is an officeholder change. A copy needs to be signed and sent to the state organization.

• IMPORTANT: Providing new members with the County Committee Information Package.

• Keeping our office notified about new members. New people are NOT official members of your county committee until we are notified and have their complete contact

information.

• Making sure that the new members sign up as a volunteer on our website. • Making sure that new members sign the NDA.

Secretary

Besides taking notes at the meetings, the secretary is responsible for sending the state organization a copy of the monthly meeting minutes.

All County Committee Members

The purpose of the county committees is to carry out the mission of New Illinois on a local level. But what is that mission?

To educate Illinoisans about their right to form a new state from the state of Illinois, following the process provided in Article IV, Sec 3 of the U.S. Constitution.

How Do Committee Members Carry Out This Mission?

To carry out this mission, MEMBERS need to be educated first. Members need to read the County Committee Information Package they received before joining the committee. It is essential to become familiar with this information in order to provide accurate answers when people ask questions.

Recruiting People During Covid Restrictions

One goal is to get more people to join the committee. How do you do this? Especially in a time of Covid lockdown?

• Pass out information. Put info on bulletin boards or whatever place will allow you to post flyers or leave information.

• On the county committee Facebook page, all members can use “Invite Friends” to invite all people they know who might be interested in this movement. These invitations don’t have to be limited to people from your county, because growing your page will get the word out.

• Use other social media platforms, such as Nextdoor, which helps you connect with people in your area.

• Once we have announced our declaration of independence from the State of Illinois (tentatively October 2020), any members can make an appointment to reach out to their elected officials at all levels of government. Not just the committee chairman, but everyone should urge their elected officials to support New Illinois. Be prepared to talk about the advantages of a new state, regardless of the elected official’s party.

• After our declaration, committee members can participate in the reading of grievances against the State of Illinois. (See Grievances below.)

• Our Founding Fathers relied on Divine Providence. Before the fall of communism, people in Eastern Europe gathered at “Monday Masses” to pray for a change in their government. Your committee can do something similar.

When Covid Restrictions Lessen

• Build a presence within your community. This is done through town halls, rallies, reading of grievances, showing up at major events e.g. veterans day parades, community events, farmers markets and fairs. Watch how other organizations do this. These things build membership.

• Committee events need to communicate about an alternative instead of the status quo: “are you tired of XYZ?” We are setting up a government to come out from underneath embedded corruption.

• Please be aware of your county’s Covid Phase. The governor has threatened businesses with fines and revocation of their licenses. If our county committees cross the line, our state board of directors will be the ones liable for fines—insurance will not cover this. And if our nonprofit registration is revoked, our operations in the State of Illinois will be limited. One instance in which we will be taking this risk is when we make our public declaration of independence. This can, however, be rightly characterized as a “protest.”

Monthly Meetings

The Illinois Open Meetings Act does not apply to New Illinois, because we were neither created by nor funded by the government. The first county committee meeting was to ratify the charter; this means it was different from other meetings, and attendees had to be vetted. Subsequent monthly committee meetings are not required to be open to the public. However, you can have an open session of the meeting where the public is invited and, if necessary, a closed session of the meeting that is private.

• Always have a sign-in sheet at meetings so you have a record of attendance. The sign-in sheet should require a signature, not a check box. This is necessary to verify that you

have a quorum. These are kept in the binder with the other committee records. In the case of a Zoom meeting, the Secretary fills it out.

• The state office needs to receive a copy of the meeting minutes so that we can be kept informed about what is going on in each county.

Marketing

The job of county committees is to introduce New Illinois to your county and to represent New Illinois in the best way possible. You could think of committees as the marketing arm of the organization. You are marketing to people in your county—creating interest and communicating to people about why they should want a new state.

• Like a franchise, the focus of all committees should be the same; one unified, united campaign.

• All materials for county committees must be consistent with those of the state

organization; they must look the same without deviation. It must be clear to people who see signs or flyers that the committee is part of New Illinois.

• There can be no change in the logo.

• County Committees can be creative in how they get the message out to their county, but all materials should use templates from the state organization.

Council of Counties

The County Representative, alternates, and the chairman are invited to attend these monthly meetings of the state organization, but only one person votes.

Legislature of the State-in-Development

This part of the county committee activity will become functional with the first constitutional convention, a few months after the Declaration.

Grievances

The Declaration is a kick-off for the next phase of New Illinois. It is a statement of why we believe we need to have a new state. The Declaration conveys that we are no longer dependent on Illinois and no longer consider Illinois our authority. After the Declaration, grievances will be released regularly (weekly if possible). Every grievance has a word-for-word statement from West Virginia to affirm loyalty to the United States.

Grievances will be read aloud on county courthouse steps. One person reads and another videotapes it. Of course, other people can attend the reading. We will post the videos on YouTube. Not every county does this every time, but the more, the better.

• If your county committee is going to do it on a given week, notify us so we can send out a press release.

• Please note: these grievances will be written by the grievance committee and are the same for every county. Grievances often relate to current events.

• Members can submit content for grievances, for instance about issues in their county.

What the County Committees Do Not Do

Website

Do not set up a website for the county committee. We need to drive traffic to the state website, where people can sign up on our mailing list and are able to make donations.

Dealing with the media

• Do not grant interviews to radical or far left of center media outlets, such as Vice. • It is good to send out an announcement or press release about the establishment of your

county committee and your meetings.

• Do not grant interviews, even to local news sources, unless you are familiar with all the New Illinois County Committee materials. In a radio interview this summer, a county committee member (who has since left) got some very basic things wrong, including: o He said we are trying to kick Chicago out of Illinois. No! We’re trying to kick

ourselves out through the formation of a new state.

o He said we are working to put this on the ballot. No! That is the project of a different organization.

Facebook and other Social Media

Purpose and Focus. The purpose of a New Illinois County Committee Facebook page is to inform people about our organization, draw attention to what we are doing and why, and educate readers about the constitutional process for forming a new state. Under this umbrella, the topics we focus on are 1) representative government (which we don’t have), 2) government corruption (which we do have), and 3) our state’s fiscal catastrophe.

Other Issues. We don’t comment on other issues unless they are related to the topics mentioned above. For instance, we are not a 2nd Amendment group. However, we will comment on that issue when it concerns laws being passed that represent Chicago/Cook but not the other 101 counties. We have commented on abortion only when our bankrupt state decided to pay for elective abortions. It is the same with every hot button issue. We have never commented about marijuana. In a new state, the laws will reflect the people who live there.

Nonpartisanship. We are incorporated as a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. Overt

partisanship can jeopardize our nonprofit status. It will also alienate independent voters, and we need to gain their support.

• Do not endorse parties or candidates.

• Even if a candidate belongs to your county committee, your committee cannot endorse them on your Facebook page or anywhere else unless they are running in a nonpartisan race. Rep. Halbrook is on our advisory board, and we can’t even endorse him.

• Post about policies, legislation, facts and the character/ethics of elected officials or candidates as it relates to our 3 areas of focus. Criticize both sides of the aisle when warranted, not just one.

• Be cautious to verify the accuracy of any posts.

Other organizations. New Illinois is committed to working in coalition with likeminded groups who share our values.

• NEVER post anything from a group called “Peaceful Red State Secession,” “Red State Secession,” “Peaceful Blue State Secession.” They appear to be a George Soros backed group that has infiltrated state split efforts across the country. They are not our friends. They speak out against us and have urged their people to attend our events in order to recruit for their group. Their goal is to split the United States into different countries. • Our legal counsel has warned us to avoid people representing the Sovereign Citizen

Movement. These people reject the U.S. Constitution, in particular the supremacy clause. They are under investigation by the FBI. They have tried to connect with us in the past and have disrupted one of our meetings.

• It is okay to post about Illinois Separation occasionally; for instance, the election results or a news article. However, the purpose of our Facebook pages is to talk about and connect people to New Illinois. There have been times when some of our county Facebook pages have been more about Illinois Separation than New Illinois.

• We don’t post announcements for other groups’ events unless New Illinois is part of that event.

Illinois Separation

Illinois Separation is a different organization from us and is not affiliated with New Illinois. We have a shared goal. We have a cordial relationship with their leader, Collin Cliburn. A few members of our county committees have been active in their petition drive. Collin has done more than anyone else in the past 50 years to publicize the idea of a new state, and he deserves credit for this. We believe their referendum has value, because it gives people an opportunity to express their opinion and send a message to those in power. We congratulated Collin when the

referendum passed by a landslide in the three counties where it was on the primary ballot.

On the other hand, there are people in Illinois Separation who have spread misinformation about New Illinois and done things to undermine our organization. We want to keep our distance from those individuals. It is quite possible that Collin doesn’t know about this.

There has also been a lot of confusion throughout the state about our two groups. People frequently ask why we don’t merge and have “strength in numbers.” First, our focus is on the constitutional process for forming a new state, and a referendum is not part of that process. Also, their game plan for moving forward after the referendum passes is not feasible and, in some points, does not follow the constitutional process.