All the while feeling the jealous glances of the College Democrat booth we were so conveniently placed next to, the YAL recruitment drive at Montana State University’s “catapalooza” was a success.

Our booth garnered large groups of people steadily over three days of recruitment, filled six signup sheets of potential members, and doubled our usual attendance at our first meeting. We came away with some awesome, dedicated, and dues-paying, members. The MSU mascot even stopped by to take our “World’s Smallest Political Quiz.” Best of all in my mind, we surprised a few College Republicans upon learning they were libertarian and got them to attend our meetings.

It was amazing to see such interest in a group so routinely painted by the national media as freaks and radicals. In fact, one assertive participant in the World’s Smallest Political Quiz observed that we “don’t look like libertarians.” And that’s the thing the general public needs to realize: an-caps, libertarians, paleo-cons and other liberty-oriented individuals aren’t the pot smoking hippies we are made out to be. We are normal citizens from all walks of life who care about our future. 

Something I’ve learned from our 2012 Fall Recruitment Drive is that as much as we must work within our own networks to refine our arguments and our logic,  we have to focus on outreach above all else. Us liberty minded folks in Bozeman, Montana area been growing simply through osmosis. We intrigue our co-workers and classmates with our outspoken arguments about the ideas of liberty and slowly convert them, but that is a slow process. What I am advocating is that we shift our attention from winning arguments to broadcasting the message we all are behind already to the biggest audience we can. When MSU YAL has done this, such as at the fall recruitment drive, I have witnessed the largest interest in our group we ever had. Messaging, not debating, I believe is what it will take for the liberty movement to succeed in winning over the American people.

Today the Pitt Johnstown YAL chapter got our semester moving with tabling events. We were able to accumulate 37 new sign-ups, bringing our total membership to just below 50 members. On a campus of less than 3,000 total students this is a huge success. We are extremely excited for what the year has to offer!

Following a very successful spring semester, YAL at Cal State-Fullerton is looking to carry the momentum over to the fall beginning with our initial recruitment drive at DiscoverFest.  DiscoverFest has proven to be our chapter’s most successful recruitment event each semester where all of the organizations on campus set up tables and booth in the quad.  The event took place over two days and students were excited for the beginning of the new school year.

With help from The World’s Smallest Political Quiz, people were eager to see where they fit on the ideological spectrum.  As always the Operation Politically Homeless kit created much interest in our table opening the way to talk to people about the idea of liberty and what YAL does on our campus and to encourage student to sign-up to remain informed of upcoming events. 

Students who showed interest in liberty were given their own copy of After the Welfare State compliments of the Atlas Society.  There were plenty of students who came up to the table who had heard of our group from the events we put on last semester (particularly from our front page coverage in the campus newspaper of our forty-foot debt wall), and wanted to discuss issues that were on their mind. 

Members from the Economics Club repeatedly came to our table to find out more information about YAL, and discovered a new (to them) school of economic thought known as the Austrian School.  These students who had been mostly taught by Keynesians were given literature about free markets including After the Welfare State, “I, Pencil,” a brochure entitled “Why Austrian Economics Matters,” and a copy of The Morality of Capitalism. 

Overall, it turned out to be another successful DiscoverFest at CSUF for YAL getting 52 new sign-ups.  We also had 8 new members attend our first meeting of the semester, all very enthusiastic about spreading the message of liberty on campus at Cal State-Fullerton.            

This past week, University at Albany Young Americans for Liberty built on our momentum gained from the SA block party and previous tabling sessions by launching a Constitution Week activism event which consisted of constructing and displaying a free speech wall.

In addition to the wall, keeping with the spirit of Constitution week, UA YAL members distributed Constitutions to the many individuals who expressed their first amendment right and frequented our table.  By the end of the week we had to replace the wall with another one.  This task was easily facilitated due to the way the wall was constructed.  Our free speech wall utilized poster board to constitute the "wall", while it was based on an easel as a foundation, making switching out an old board for a new one relatively simple.  We were also successful in distributing all 150 Constitutions allotted to us by YAL National.