{"id":738,"date":"2011-09-09T16:43:11","date_gmt":"2011-09-09T21:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/?p=738"},"modified":"2012-04-20T00:02:22","modified_gmt":"2012-04-20T05:02:22","slug":"what%e2%80%99s-it-cost-to-run-for-second-vice-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/09\/what%e2%80%99s-it-cost-to-run-for-second-vice-president\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s it cost to run for Second Vice President?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Similarly to when I ran for ID, I’m going to publish what it cost to run for Second Vice President, for the benefit of anyone who may follow in my shoes.\u00a0 Here’s the entry<\/a> for the ID costs.<\/p>\n

The first step was the announcement<\/a> at the end of the August 2010 convention.\u00a0 I was an outgoing director, so the convention registration and hotel costs were reduced; most would probably not count that as part of the campaign.\u00a0 However, I had announcement cards to hand out on Saturday night, since that would be my only chance to see most of the voters before the next annual convention.\u00a0 2,500 cards cost $126 (M13 Graphics<\/a> is great!).<\/p>\n

I made a strategic decision to not attend any district conferences other than my own district.\u00a0 The campaign rules limit me to attending only Toastmasters events in my home region, and I already had good relationships with the leaders in all eight districts.\u00a0 I felt the expensive weekends that might be spent on those would be better used to reach out to other districts with phone calls.\u00a0 This meant I had essentially zero travel costs (other than the convention itself), a sharp contrast to my ID campaign (which was mostly travel costs, within the region).<\/p>\n

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The November mailing (International Officer Candidate Survey, IOCS) was an e-mail, so no costs there.\u00a0 I also avoided some costs by working with a talented campaign committee member to create the graphics, instead of hiring a designer.<\/p>\n

For some fall and spring district conferences, I sent out tabletop signs (11×17 inches with folding wings, FedEx Kinko’s does a nice job of printing and dry-mounting on foamcore board) and announcement cards.\u00a0 That’s an area where I could have done more.\u00a0 The ones I did cost about $300 (with postage).\u00a0 I also had 5,000 more announcement cards printed in preparation for the spring conferences, that was another $126 (yes, same price, they lowered prices and I ordered with more advance notice).<\/p>\n

I hired a photographer friend to shoot some more photos to use ($250) — I didn’t end up doing much with them besides rotate them through my Facebook campaign page.\u00a0 I primarily used the very nice professional photograph I did from my ID campaign.<\/p>\n

I attended the February 2011 mid-year board meeting<\/a> in Portland, Oregon, to hear the nominating committee (ILC) announcement first-hand, but it probably wasn’t necessary (neither of the two nominated candidates attended).\u00a0 I thought it was a good chance to network, and a good excuse for a weekend getaway to a city I always wanted to see.\u00a0 That was about $900 for airfare and hotel.<\/p>\n

There was a lot of phone calls to trio members, but I did most of them on the weekend (free nights and weekends on my cell phone plan), and for the international calls, I signed up for a discounted international call program with my carrier, as well as using Skype.\u00a0 This was maybe $200 total added cost.\u00a0 My campaign committee was also making a lot of calls, but they used a similar strategy to control costs.<\/p>\n

The August mailing to 600 voters (trios, IPDGs, and PIDs\/PIPs) had three pieces in a customized envelope:<\/p>\n