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Pappas was blown away by the response the PPA received from members willing and able to step up and take on a more active role: “The deadline for State Director applications closed at the end of January. We thought we’d receive around 400 applications and ended up getting over 1,000. We’ve been trying to sort through those and hope to place everyone soon. We’ll start contacting people with follow ups shortly. We would have liked to have already notified people by now, but due to the volume, it hasn’t happened yet.”

Receiving three times the number of expected applications is quite a feat, even for an organization that weighs in at 930,000 members. Pappas comments on the overwhelming response: “There’s a real interest by our members to be more active. We hear from people a lot who say they want to be more active in the cause. The State Directors are going to get special access to the PPA’s resources and special incentives in our organization, so these are people who are interested in doing more than the average citizen.”

So what will these new recruits be doing? They’ll be the PPA’s “men in the field” on the state level, exposing new people to the organization and expanding membership. They’ll serve as media liaisons to local outlets and organize events. The responsibilities they are charged with are not small in scope, so the PPA sought out members with political backgrounds. Pappas explains, “We have a good mix of college students, a lot of attorneys, and really what we were looking for were people with grassroots campaign experience. Many have worked on political campaigns. One applicant led a community group who stopped a prison from being built in his neighborhood. Those were the type of people we were really interested in. The pool was a vast spectrum of people, just like the poker community is. There were men, women, young, and old who responded. We’ll have a good mix in every state.”

If you’re reading about the State Directors program for the first time, you may find yourself wanting to get involved as well. Although the Directors themselves have been assigned, special committees will be formed at the state level for those who are interested. To sum up Pappas’ thoughts, “We’re not going to run anyone away from being involved whether we give them the title of State Director or not. The other applicants from that state would be ideal for committees.”

Each State Director’s arsenal will include a PPA-registered e-mail address, access to a special home page for their state (which essentially becomes ground zero for state information), support and training by the PPA’s star-studded staff and board members, and the ability to e-mail all PPA members in their states with a click of a button.

Last August, the PPA launched an initiative called the August Advocate program, which was designed to mobilize the PPA army while Congressmen were in their home districts for the August recess. Pappas compares the State Directors program to the August Advocates: “The organization has grown since then. The August Advocate program was a one month campaign that was specific to the Congressional August recess. We were engaging our membership to go to meetings and events and write and call the district offices. Our members attended a large number of meetings and our Advocates found success raising the issues at certain events. We’ll likely do something similar this year.”

The success of both the membership numbers of the PPA and the State Directors program bodes well for the online poker legislation currently awaiting its turn in Congress. For more information, check out the PPA website at www.pokerplayersalliance.org. You can also visit the bustling Poker Legislation Forum on PocketFives.com.