I had the opportunity to participate in OANP's lobby day over spring break. It was quite interesting and I truly hope that we do this again every legislative session.
My experience with participation in politics is so different. It usually involves me and a couple hundred friends, holding up signs and marching in a parade through traffic. This type of thing is great for coming together and building an understanding of what is on people's minds in the streets, but for getting specific goals accomplished...-Not so effective-
Laura from the OANP, Leah the NCNM-OANP rep., and the formidable Sue Yirku planned out a day of events. I got to meet with my own state Senator and Representative and explain to them why advancing the Naturopathic profession is good for all of us. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Almost everyone we talked with knew about our medicine first hand! The only one who didn't said that he had no issues with any of the bills or ideas that we were bringing to him. At the end of the day one of our bills made it through a house committee, and we were informed that one of the bills we were trying to block had been effectively killed.
Overall it was good experience with the political process and has me really excited to participate in a similar exercise in the national government (DC-FLI) in May.
