63 Magazine - Issue 1

Make
Call Time
More
Enjoyable
with Larry Tramutola
We all know the importance of call time. Call time is sacred for a lot of different
reasons. It’s the time you dedicate every day to volunteer recruitment. It’s a
time for your volunteers to get together to take action. It’s a time for volunteers
to reach voters. It’s a time for you to test your volunteers. And it’s a time to
display the kind of discipline that is absolutely crucial for an organizer to have.
Sometimes call time is really great.
Maybe on those nights your volunteers
bring in your favorite food, you have
a really great night on the phone, or
you have a great group of volunteers
in working hard the whole time.
Let’s be real though. Call time isn’t always
fun. Sometimes those five hours feel like five
years. Sometimes no one is home or worse—
the only people home are shockingly cranky.
But you’re an organizer; you’re trained to
use your call time every night, no matter
how miserable it sometimes makes you,
because you know how important it is.
To help you out, each issue of 63 Magazine
will bring you new ideas to make
call time more fun. Because, admit
it: you need it to be more fun.
This issue’s tip comes from Larry
Tramutola. He’s been organizing for
over 40 years and even he still learns
something new every race he works on.
When he was recently working on a
particularly tough soda tax campaign, he
realized his team needed to do something
to keep the spirits of their volunteers up.
Here’s what they tried.
Here’s the problem: you are not the only one
who sometimes dreads call time. Your
volunteers are going to have rough nights
too. It’s your job to keep organizing
fun for all of your volunteers.