Eagle Council '09 Report

October 1, 2009

  Dear Eagles and Friends:

I've just returned from the 2009 Eagle Council conference in St. Louis.  It was one of the biggest and most exciting Eagle Councils I've ever experienced -- and I've been going to them for almost 30 years!

The theme was "TAKE BACK AMERICA," and hundreds of dedicated conservatives from all across the country were energized and trained for doing just that.

We were joined by a huge contingent from Janet Folger Porter's Faith2Action, a wonderful, dynamic Christian network of pro-family groups based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The hallways and meeting rooms at the Hilton Frontenac were crowded to overflowing, and the atmosphere was positively electric!

Highlights included remarks by "Joe The Plumber" Wurzelbacher (who's quite a good speaker), U.S. Representatives Tom Price (GA), Steve King (IA), Trent Franks (AZ), Michele Bachman (MN), Tom McClintock (CA) and Todd Akin (MO). The highlights of the week-end though, were the inspiring calls to action from Eagle Forum's founder, Phyllis Schlafly and from Janet Folger Porter, and the dynamic closing address from Governor Mike Huckabee at the Saturday evening dinner.

However, the red meat of the conference, in my opinion, was served in the twenty-four outstanding Workshops -- each led by one to three expert, dedicated, experienced conservative leaders -- all entitled "How To ..." They covered concrete actions to take to deal with everything from global warming, illegal aliens, threats against parents' rights, U.N. attacks on U.S. sovereignty, abortion, defending traditional marriage, understanding Islam, feminist and gay attacks on the military, and much, much more.  The only frustration was that four workshops were given at a time, so that we had to make difficult choices!

I was honored to be asked to introduce the speakers at the workshop on "Vote Fraud, Census and ACORN," and I took advantage at the close of the session to plug my husband Morton's Leadership Institute, by letting the audience know that James O'Keefe, the young man who (along with his equally clever partner) pulled off the coup that has exposed ACORN's corruption to the world, was trained at Leadership Institute Schools, and actually worked for L.I. for almost a year!

Friends, if you missed the 2009 Eagle Council, START PLANNING NOW TO ATTEND NEXT YEAR'S COUNCIL! It's always held the last week-end of September.

Faithfully,

Helen Blackwell
Chairman,
Virginia Eagle Forum