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Texas Agriculture Archive

January 17, 2003

TFB 'wired' for legislative session

By Gene Hall
Publisher

Our state government has changed a lot in the 21st Century. One of the most daunting changes is the amount of information that must be processed, understood and acted upon by those hoping to have an impact on legislation.

Last year, the TFB Website received more than 2.7 million "hits," to use the Internet term for each time a file is accessed on the site. This is an impressive number and it shows the growing importance of using the Internet for communicating with TFB members and other important publics that are essential to Farm Bureau's success.

The TFB staff is gearing up to use the website for the legislative session more than ever before. The website is a mechanism for very quick access to legislative information and also the means to act upon it in a timely way.

One of the first things you see when logging on to the site at www.txfb.org is the Top Story and Other News segments. Now that the Legislature is in session, stories from Austin will often be featured here.

For more in-depth legislative news, find the listing on the left side of the TFB Home Page and click "Legislative." This will bring up options that take you to the latest legislative news, profiles on the TFB Austin team, and on-line copies of our Austin Newsletter, which has all the latest Austin news.

Another feature is called the "Legislative Action Center." This is a quick and easy way to find your legislator and state senator and send an email to them using our database. You'll find the link to the LAC right on the home page.

We can send e-mail messages to TFB leaders and members with links to the website. Just click on the link in the e-mail to view important legislative information.

That's why it's important to share your e-mail address with us. As a matter of policy, the personal information of any Farm Bureau member, including e-mail addresses, are never distributed to any other parties. So you need not worry about getting unwanted e-mail messages as a result of providing your address to us.

As we build our database of member and leader e-mail addresses, TFB will be able to respond quickly, informing members of key actions on bills in the Legislature. Armed with this information, you can contact your own legislator by e-mail or phone. The next time you're on the Internet, why not take a minute to send me an e-mail message and ask to be put on the list? My e-mail address is ghall@txfb.org. There is also a form on the website to join the list.

With your e-mail address, we can also send Cornerpost, our weekly newsletter for TFB leaders, by e-mail. Cornerpost has all the news about Farm Bureau and Farm Bureau people, updated on-line every week. All of this web service is free for TFB members.

I hope I have convinced you by now that our website and e-mail capability is a powerful new tool that adds up to more effectiveness for Farm Bureau in the legislative process.

Your thoughts, ideas and suggestions on how to improve all portions of the website are welcome, too. Our goal is to make this tool "information central" for Texas Farm Bureau members.