Appleton Birch Chapter Event Draws Capacity Crowd
by Paul Dragu, JBS Director of Communications
Who knew a talk about the conspiratorial agenda for totalitarian one-world government would draw such a crowd?
On January 10, Alex Newman spoke to a packed house at FreedomProject Academy in Appleton, Wisconsin. FPA, The John Birch Society’s affiliate online K-12 school, is located a hop and a skip down the road from JBS headquarters. By the time Alex got warmed up, chapter members were bringing chairs from other rooms to accommodate the eager listeners filing in. Some people drove a couple of hours to attend.
Alex’s presentation was a JBS Freedom’s Voices speakers bureau event. The Appleton JBS chapter got wind that Alex was coming to town and jumped on the opportunity to organize a presentation. Alex’s talk was titled “Globalist ‘Great Reset’: The End of Freedom.” His goal is to create a wave of understanding so powerful that it will wash away any evil, conspiratorial plan to end freedom.
Speaking events have been a staple of JBS education since the Society’s beginning. During JBS founder Robert Welch’s leadership, we had a bustling speakers bureau with a roster consisting of 50 active speakers at a time, two hundred in total. Though we live in the digital age, we consider speaking events akin to physical books, because they never go out of style or lose their value. There’s no replacement for genuine human connection.
But we do also offer virtual speaking events — webinars. We’ve hosted quite a number in 2022. They are a fraction of the cost and very effective for educating and recruiting. One local field coordinator in the Rocky Mountain West recently told us that he gets so many prospects from webinars that he can barely keep up.
We believe increasing the number of JBS speaking events — in-person or virtual — will help immensely with education and recruitment. We’ve made many changes at HQ to help facilitate more live events and webinars. We’ve added staff, we’ve upgraded our Zoom account, and we’ve added speakers. And this, we pray, is just the beginning.
“Speaking events are a great way to attract and meet new people. Many attendees are good prospects for JBS membership, and these events are important for exposing them to the JBS and encouraging them to join,” said Peter Rykowski, the Appleton section leader. “Speaking events also are great for educating people about the threats to our Constitution and sovereignty, as well as the solutions.”
Wisconsin’s JBS field coordinator, Nicole Sanders, agreed. “Speaking events are a great tool to use to educate the community while showing the importance of individual involvement at the local level.”
The Appleton chapter will continue to hold and promote speaking events as part of the strategy to grow and eventually create more chapters in the area.
We encourage members and supporters to make 2023 a year bustling with activity. Take advantage of our patriotic experts and host a Freedom’s Voices speaker who can help create understanding of the issues and offer lasting solutions to them.
Visit our Freedom’s Voices tab at JBS.org to peruse a lineup of speakers and topics. You can also email Speakers Bureau Coordinator Kyanna Holbrook at kholbrook@jbs.org when you’re ready to start organizing your event.