"But what about people like me? I'm the only one going to the conference from my state, and the states that surround mine have big enough delegations at the conference to make up working groups on their own!" I am told that eight to twelve people is the optimum size for a working group. I am also told that we are about 300 strong now with almost 20 school-age participants - and growing every day! I also notice that we have people from all over the world who are planning to come, and some states have very few delegates, so some working groups will include people who will not necessarily be working together after the conference.

Below is a chart that shows how I think people should be arranged into working groups. Why me? I have access to a convenient mass mailer at www.propeace.net. As a former educational administrator and statistician, I have experience in organizing lists of people into groups. As the ex-wife of a cartographer and one who has traveled in about 45 states and 10 countries and lived in nine states (CA, IL, MI, OH, LA, MA, NJ, NC, SC) and three countries, I think I have a good understanding of geography. As a retired person, I have the time to give to this project - or can make the time, because nobody should feel left out. And I have direct contact with a few experienced state and regional leaders from the DoP Campaign.

In the top section of the chart, working groups will probably be called by the name of their state or part of a state; for example, FL team or Upstate NY team versus Metro NY team. On lines with more than one state, the second state currently has no delegates, but if any register late, they seem to "belong" with the state with which they are listed. If you are a State or Regional Coordinator of a state with more than one working group, please email me and let me know how you wish to divide your groups and what we should call them. (Good luck, CA!)

If you are in the second section of the chart and you already have an active regional DoP campaign, or if you have any suggestions for more natural groupings and you have a better idea for a name, please email me and let me know. The first group in this section is deliberately small and has a regional name because I assume delegates from NH and VT will manifest - thus the + sign after the number.

The nine delegates in the third section include the three out of nine southeastern states that are sending a single delegate along with those delegates from other countries. Furthermore, these three southeastern states are each surrounded by states that have either no delegates or enough delegates to make up a working group. The name "Satellites" is meant to refer to our scattered locations. We share in common our lack of experience with the DoP campaign, and I hope that when the time comes, we can find a welcoming "planet" with more experience to "orbit." For example, I would love to reunite the Carolinas, either GA or NC might welcome AL, one of the TX groups might welcome LA, and the smaller groups from any state or region might invite one of our international guests to join.

As we get closer to conference time, I suppose The Peace Alliance will be sending updated lists; I will update the chart as that occurs.

296 total people in 35 groups

*In the first section of the list, only the first state listed has delegates.
**In the second section of the list, states with numbers have delegates.
***These are the "blank" southeastern states and all other delegates outside the continental USA.

I hope this helps in the preliminary planning for the organization of the conference.