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Due to the large extent of our country, the government does not always have the opportunity to fully monitor the situation in all spheres of life of the population. In this regard, special Internet resources have been created with the help of which proactive citizens can put forward their proposals (petitions) to improve the quality of life.

How petition sites work

You should know that every citizen of Russia can post a petition on a special portal. To do this, you only need to register.

As a rule, on a quality petition site, each petition is moderated before publication. After public placement, voting for the project begins. Once a proposal receives a certain number of votes, it is submitted to the authorities for consideration. This is in theory.

As for practice, most online resources with petitions have a simplified registration system (usually through social networks). As a result, votes can be cheated, since no one monitors the authenticity of accounts on the networks. This situation leads to the lack of legal force in the petition. Accordingly, the government cannot take such appeals seriously in its decision important issues. However, this does not mean that all efforts will go in vain. If a topic causes public resonance, the media pays attention to it and puts it on public display. After this, quite often the issue is resolved without the participation of authorities.

What portals can you use to submit a petition?

It is immediately worth noting that the only official website for petitions is the portal of the Russian Public Initiative. It is from the ROI portal that citizens’ appeals are submitted to the government chamber for consideration, after which the authorities make their decision on the issue. Registration for the ROI implies confirmation of the identity of each voter. Only owners of a verified account can log in to the site. More details about the capabilities of ROI can be found in.

The most popular unofficial voting sites are change.org, petition-president.rf and life.ru. You can register on these portals using Email or an account from one of social networks. At the same time, they all invite citizens to formulate an appeal to the government, but do not guarantee its consideration in practice.

Wishing to draw the attention of the authorities to existing problem, a person can file a petition - an appeal in writing or electronic form. Drawing up a petition can be personal or collective, but in the future it must be signed by a group of people. Its main task is to improve public life and protect human rights and freedoms. Citizens of Russia can submit petitions online using the official website of Russian Public Initiatives (ROI) or the Petition to the President portal. Whether the voice of the people will be heard and how to correctly compose an appeal will be discussed in this article.

What is a petition?

A petition is a concept that refers to a request, appeal or complaint of a citizen or group of persons addressed to local, regional or federal authorities. She can touch various problems any sphere of human life: economics, ecology, healthcare, education, culture.

Important: every person has the right to apply via the Internet.

How to file a petition in Russia?

To create appeals from citizens of the Russian Federation to the authorities, a special resource has been created - ROI - Russian Public Initiative. You can find it at www.roi.ru. The site was created back in 2013 by presidential decree.

The website of public initiatives raises problems relating to the socio-economic life of citizens of the country, municipal and government controlled. With the help of the resource, anyone can take part in the management of government affairs.

Another resource created specifically for filing petitions is called Petition to the President. You can find it at http://petition-president.rf. The portal makes it possible to contact the head of state.

Features of the ROI portal

On the portal of Russian public initiatives, you can submit your petition/complaint or vote for already published citizen initiatives. In order to use the functionality of the resource, certain conditions must be met:

• having Russian citizenship;
• age over 18 years;
• having an account on the State Services portal.

In order for the initiative to be seen by government officials, it must be checked by the site’s moderators and a sufficient number of caring users vote for it. After publishing an initiative, it may be reviewed by moderators for 2 months. If the appeal is made in accordance with the rules of the portal, it is published on the website, assigning it a specific number. After that, users can vote for it for 1 year.

In order for a petition to be considered by the project expert group, it is necessary that it receives a sufficient number of user votes:

• if this is a municipal-scale problem, the application must receive at least 5% of the votes of the total population of the municipality;
• for regional-level issues, it is necessary to collect more than 5% of votes FOR from the total number of residents of the region;
• when submitting applications on federal issues, the application must collect at least one hundred thousand votes FOR.

Those initiatives that have received a sufficient number of user votes are sent for consideration to local, regional or municipal authorities. A decision regarding the issue raised must be made within 2 months. The initiative must either be rejected or accepted. The decision and comments regarding its adoption are published on the ROI portal.

Important: to create an application, you must be authorized in . This can be done through State Services.

Due to the fact that the entrance to the ROI occurs through State Services, vote cheating is excluded. One citizen can only cast one vote for a particular initiative. Considering the multi-stage registration procedure for State Services, the likelihood of creating “fake” pages is reduced.

How to apply for ROI?

In order for an initiative to be reviewed by moderators, it must be compiled in accordance with the portal rules:

• the petition must not contain obscene words;
• it should not contain insults, threats, or calls for extremism;
• the requirements in the application must not contradict the Constitution of the Russian Federation;
• it should clearly identify the problem and propose options for solving it.

Before submitting your question for publication, you need to make sure that there are no requests on the same topic in the archive. To do this you need to use the search.

Website Petition to the President

Another way to reach out to the authorities is to post an appeal on the official website http://petition-presidentu.rf/ The rules for submitting an application on this resource are not so strict, and the procedure for creating it is much simpler, but the likelihood that the issue will be heard and resolved is much lower . For the convenience of users, the site provides free consultations with lawyers who can be contacted if controversial issues arise.

To create an application, you need to click on the “Submit your petition” button on home page resource or on the “Create” button in the site header. In the new window, you need to fill in the empty columns by writing the topic of the question, outlining the essence of the problem, and indicating contact information. To send a request, you must answer the simple Security Question, and then click on the “Submit” button.

Each user can vote FOR or AGAINST questions already posted on the site. To do this, you need to go to the “Sign Petitions” tab, select a category of questions and find the one you need in the list of publications. Next, you need to read the text of the appeal and click on the blue or red button at the bottom of the page. Below you can leave your comment regarding the issue raised by the applicant.

Attention: on this portal the user can vote once a day.

If a person’s goal is to contact the authorities with a pressing issue, he should familiarize himself with the rules for writing a petition. A well-written appeal has a better chance of being heard:

• the title of the appeal should be succinct, interesting, and meaningful;
• the text must indicate to whom the question is addressed, which authority should deal with the problem;
• In no case should you use offensive expressions, rude phrases and words, or obscene language in the text;
• It is necessary to clarify the importance of the problem and suggest ways to solve it;
• at the end you need to check the text for errors (grammatical, stylistic, semantic).

After publishing the application on the Internet portal, do not forget to distribute a link to it on the Internet in order to collect as much as possible more votes like-minded people. It is most convenient to use social networks to send links.

Do you want to change something in your locality, region or country? Write a petition. Petitions can change the world if they are carefully thought out and written correctly. You may already have a cause or a thought-out idea, and below you will find some tips to help you write a compelling petition.

Steps

Part 1

Investigation of the cause

Make sure the subject of the petition falls within the jurisdiction of your local government. Contact your local government office or visit its website. Your petition may need to be heard at the provincial or state level. Ask employees to refer you to the department that handles issues related to your case. Then ask for guidance on petition writing.

Find out how many signatures you need. It is very important. It would be terrible to set a goal of 1,000 signatures and reach it, only to realize that 2,000 were needed. Also find out if your petition needs to be approved before circulating.

Find out how people must sign a petition for it to be valid. If you are trying to register a candidate for election, and by law you must provide the address of each signatory, ask your subscribers to provide this information.

Research your question to fully understand the different positions. When researching your question, you can find out if anyone has already filed a similar petition.

Consider what environment is ideal for distributing your petition. Regardless of your choice, you will need to write the petition correctly (see below additional tips on this occasion). Written petitions can be more effective for local petitions, and electronic petitions can be distributed over the Internet much more quickly. Use sites like ipetitions.com, Petitions24.com or GoPetition.com which provide more high level more effective than some competing petition sites. Facebook can be great too effective way for collection large quantity online support on this issue. The same details are important for electronic petitions as for paper petitions.

• If your issue requires people to not only agree with your opinion, but also take action, consider collective action as an alternative to petitioning. For example, you could start a campaign on an online forum such as The Point. Online forums and similar sites gather support in the same way that a petition does, but they also focus on taking action to change a situation rather than just passively asking for it.

Part 2

Writing a petition

1. Come up with a very specific slogan that emphasizes how you want people to support you. It must be accurate, concise and informative.

   • Weak: We support more funding for the park. This sentence is too general. What park? How much money?
   • Strong: We demand that members of the Area Conservation Committee allocate funds for a new park in the Entertainment District. This quote shows the exact details.

2. Keep your petition short. People will be less likely to support you if they have to spend a lot of time reading what you've written. Regardless of the length of your petition, at the very beginning of the first paragraph you should emphasize your specific goal. Then describe the reason(s) for the petition. This is the paragraph most people read.

   • Example of the first paragraph of a petition: We demand that members of the Area Conservation Committee allocate funds for a new park in the Entertainment District. There are no parks in this area. Our children need to have a place where they can enjoy nature and play outdoors.

3. Add text to support your first declarative paragraph. This text should contain information and specific examples, showing the importance of what you stand for. You can write as much as you want, but just keep in mind that most people you talk to on the street won't read all the content.

   Re-read your text carefully. Make sure it (1) describes the situation, (2) contains a suggestion for action, and (3) explains why it is necessary. It's clear? If you were not aware of the situation, would you have understood what was going on after reading your petition?

   Check your petition for spelling and grammatical errors. If your petition is full of errors, it is very unlikely that you will be taken seriously. Use spell check and check your petition for obvious errors. Read it out loud to determine how it sounds and whether it makes sense.

   Have someone else read your petition, preferably a friend or relative who is not aware of the situation. Does the person understand your purpose? Can they tell you why you are interceding, what you are demanding, and why you are demanding it?

Part 3

Creating a subscription form

Create a subscription form for separate sheet paper. Place the name of the petition at the very top. The title of your petition should be short but descriptive.

• Example of a petition title: Petition for a new park in the entertainment district

1. Prepare the form using a spreadsheet program. It will look much more professional and will be easier to change if necessary. Divide the page into five columns called "Name", "Address", "Email Address", "Phone Number" and "Signature". In some cases and in some states, you may have to add a column called " Registration number voter." Leave enough space for the Address column. Add 10 to 20 lines per page.

   • If you do not have a computer or spreadsheet program, contact your local library, where a librarian or volunteer can provide you with library computers to start your petition. If this does not work, take a ruler and divide the 216 x 280 mm or A4 sheet into the five (or six) columns listed just above and follow the further instructions.

2. Make a copy or print multiple copies of the original. Make enough pages for the number of signatures you need. Number the pages so you can better keep track of the collected signatures. You can also ask signature collectors to initial the pages they used or controlled so that you can ask them any questions about what is written on a particular page. Initialing pages also increases overall efficiency.

The 360 ​​TV channel found out why the signatures of Internet users do not affect anything.

Next news

This year, signing petitions on the Internet has become almost fashionable. Users of the most popular portal for collecting signatures, Change.org, create petitions for almost every informational and not so important issue. There are hundreds of initiatives, mostly addressed to the government or large private companies.

But of the long list of public petitions over the past two years, only about 20 have been able to influence the outcome of events, and all of them concern small, “local” cases. This is logical, because the state cannot take signatures from Change.org into account, or rather does not even have the right - they have no legal force. But such petitions are not useless for resolving private situations.

TV channel "360" compiled detailed instructions, on which portals and for what reasons it is worth collecting signatures. After all, there are also government Internet resources where signed petitions can actually change legislation.

Legality of signatures

On Change.org, anyone can create a petition to protect their rights; topics are not moderated. This electronic platform operates in 196 countries in 14 languages. However, no matter how many signatures are collected, government agencies cannot take them into account when considering serious issues. And here’s the catch: to leave your vote on this resource, you do not need to enter your passport information, and this is a mandatory procedure for the legitimate collection of signatures. That is, from a legal point of view, these signatures are just air.

In addition, the mechanism of Change.org allows votes to be cheated, since the link goes to a page on the social network. In the same “VKontakte” on this moment 350 million people are registered, the portal is mainly Russian-language.

Now we count. The population of Russia is 143 million, only half have access to the Internet, there are about 200 million Russian-speaking people around the world, another 100 speak Russian as a second language. This means that when counting real users towards the maximum possible number (even if we add here a million registered Turkish citizens and 200 thousand English-speaking users), the number of “fake” pages is 50 million, although the real number is much higher.

In what cases does public resonance benefit?

However, there is certainly a benefit from the resource, for example, when a certain initiative gains several hundred thousand votes, the problem often ends up in the media, in which case the answer most often comes. As a rule, touching life stories attract attention. Among the latest victories of users is the petition of Svetlana Lapina from Shchelkova. A woman with a child in her arms took out a mortgage from Sberbank, and at the same time fulfilled one of the key requirements - took out life insurance. Soon Lapina was diagnosed with cancer of the most severe, stage four.

Sberbank-Insurance denied her the due payments for a long time, and then the credit institution itself sued her, demanding to collect 800 thousand rubles from the disabled person of the 1st group and evict her from the apartment. It is worth noting that life insurance at Sberbank is not the cheapest - 1% per year of the mortgage, in the case of Svetlana - about 40 thousand rubles annually.

The petition in defense of Lapina received 407.5 thousand votes, was delivered to the management of Sberbank, and the lawsuit against the woman was withdrawn. The company decided that its reputation was worth more than Svetlana’s apartment.

Thus, petitions that may move a large number of people can cause significant reputational damage to the party being complained about. Here are the topics of the winning petitions:

Why collecting signatures on Change.org is useless

Without a legal basis, petitions concerning the life of the country as a whole cannot have a positive outcome. No matter how many millions of signatures there are, the matter is doomed to failure. So it is completely useless to create topics of the following nature:

• dissatisfaction with the actions of authorities at the federal or municipal level;
• resignation of a major official;
• changes in legislation;
• disagreement with the court decision;
• prohibition of any common practice.

To raise serious issues and legitimately collect signatures, a special state resource has been created, which has legal force — « ».

Signatures that must be responded to are collected on the state website www.roi.ru. The principle is the same - collecting votes for this or that initiative. But at the same time, each signature on this site has legal weight, since registration requires passport data, namely a registration account on the portal public services www.gosuslugi.ru Personal Area There are currently about four million Russians living there. For activation, passport data and SNILS are required.

Since this portal does not communicate with social networks, signatures are collected much more slowly. Moreover, the topic of the petition must be approved by a moderator, but within no more than two months from the date of submission of the application. The petition is then posted on the portal for a period of no more than a year.

How many signatures are needed for the authorities to react?

Both federal and municipal authorities must respond to an initiative that has collected the required number of signatures on the state portal. The quorum is:

• federal level: at least 100,000 votes “for” the initiative;
• regional level: for regions with a population of over two million people - 100 thousand votes, for the rest - 5% of the region's population;
• municipal level - 5% of the population of the municipality.

After the petition receives the required number of votes, it is sent to the working group corresponding to the subject. The deadline for making a decision on the initiative is no more than two months from the date of referral. Expert working group makes a reasoned decision to implement or reject an initiative. The decision and its rationale are posted on the ROI website.

Which petitions “won” on the ROI website?

Signatures are collected slowly due to the lack of clear access to them through social networks and, accordingly, a lengthy registration process. Currently, the website contains 8,437 initiatives, the most “successful” federal ones have an average of 20-30 thousand signatures. Required number of votes in recent months The petition “State payment for abortions only for medical reasons” has gained momentum and is now under consideration by the authorities.

In general, among the successful initiatives posted on the state resource is the victory of Internet users in such high-profile cases as the return of the minimum ppm rate, the preservation of a phone number when switching to another telecom operator, the ban on increasing the volume during commercials on TV, as well as the possibility making duplicate vehicle license plates in case of theft or loss.

World experience. US citizens asked for a Death Star

The most popular resource for creating petitions is on the website of the White House in the United States, and a citizen of any country can leave their vote for the initiative. According to the We the People constitutional rule, any initiatives with more than 25 thousand signatures are considered.

Thus, in 2013, the presidential administration was forced to consider the project for the construction of the Death Star space station from “ Star Wars“- this is exactly the project that Internet users came up with. The head of the Department of Science and Space of the White House Office of Management and Budget, Paul Shawcross, had to answer. And it immediately became clear that the authorities took the comic case seriously; the initiative was rejected because:

• “The Death Star will cost $850 quadrillion to build, and we are trying to reduce the budget deficit, not increase it”;
• “the presidential administration does not support the idea of ​​destroying planets”;
• “Why waste huge amounts of taxpayer money on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that could be exploited by the pilot of a single-seat spaceship?”

How did you collect signatures before?

The legislation provides for such options as collective appeal. “The old fashioned way,” signatures on paper were distributed until 2013, when the official portal “Russian Public Initiative” became operational. Of course, handwritten petitions are still being considered; by law, a response must be given in writing within one month.

The requirements for a collective appeal are the same, in addition, it must contain the following:

• the name and address of the city government authority or official to whom they are addressed;
• a statement of the substance of the proposal, application, complaint or petition;
• last name, first name, patronymic of those applying, their addresses, contact numbers;
• date and personal signature.

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A petition is an appeal to state authorities, local government or other authorized persons, signed by several people.

Petitions are usually created to resolve important issues or discussing public initiatives.

By creating petitions using Democrat, you can attract the attention of a large number of people and receive support from experts and public organizations.

4 Key Elements of Successful Petitions

As a result of the analysis of petitions that received greatest number votes and ended in victory, we identified 4 common elements:

The petition's goals are compelling and achievable.

State the main demand of your petition: what exactly do you want to change and how? If you can't do this in one clear and concise sentence, then most likely the problem you are describing is too broad.

The petition has been sent to the addressee

Modern Democratic online tools allow you to collect a large number of signatures for your petition, but if you do not send it to the recipient, your work may be in vain.

Active use of social networks

VKontakte, Facebook, Odnoklassniki, Twitter and other online communities are an easy way to quickly get the support of a large number of people.

Online petition supported by offline events

Hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of signatures - great way draw the attention of the addressee of the petition, but what next? To bring the petition to victory, you need to be active outside the Internet: negotiate directly with the addressee, involve public and other organizations in your petition, participate in round tables and press conferences, organize meetings and events in support of the petition, etc.

Step 1: Post a Petition

1. Define your goal: what exactly do you want to change?

Your answer should be:

Specific

The addressee of your petition is unlikely to be able to solve the world hunger problem, but he may well be able to increase funding social programs or launch charity projects to help the poor.

Measurable

Be clear about what metric will signal the success of your petition. It's good if you were able to answer this question briefly.

2. Determine the type of petition

Problem

If you want to report a violation of your rights and seek justice

Initiative

If you want to propose an idea for a public project or law

3. Select the recipient of the petition

Who has the necessary authority to solve your problem or implement your initiative?

You should not write to the President or the Government right away; most issues are resolved at the local level: if your question relates to parking, write to the head of the Department of Transport of your city.

It is also useful to include those who can influence the success of the petition, such as supervisory authorities with jurisdiction over the issues raised.

3 Tips for Choosing a Petition Recipient

1. The addressee of the petition must have the authority to resolve your issue. This could be a government representative, a company or an individual.

2. Select those who can help your petition win. The city mayor or store owner can often help more than the President or Prime Minister.

3. Use several ways to influence the recipient of the petition.

4. State the title of the petition.

Focus on the title Special attention- they look at him first of all. It should be short, informative, and just the right amount of provocative so that people want to read the entire petition.

How to write a good headline

For problems:

Write about specific decision Problems

Instead of “Stop cruelty to animals” - “Adopt a law to protect animals from cruelty.”

Instead of “The World Hockey Championship in Ulyanovsk is not accessible to the disabled” – “Make the World Hockey Championship in Ulyanovsk accessible to the disabled.”

For example, “Stop the reorganization of the correctional school for children with visual impairments, 2 months left!”

For initiatives:

Write what exactly you offer

For example, "Return the name Stalingrad to the city of Volgograd."

Use incentive structures

Instead of “The World Hockey Championship in Ulyanovsk is not accessible to the disabled” – “Make the World Hockey Championship in Ulyanovsk accessible to the disabled”

Communicate importance and urgency

For example, “Perpetuate the memory of Maya Plisetskaya - erect a monument next to the Bolshoi Theater!”

5. Describe the problem and the solution you propose

Why might your problem or initiative be of interest to other people?

Be sure to write an answer to this question, because it is through the text of the petition that you can convince other people to sign it:

Describe in detail the problem and the solution you propose.
Share why this is important to other people and why they need to take action now.

If you have any research, surveys public opinion, media publications or other materials in support of your position, be sure to include them in the text of the petition.

Bring stories real people who are directly affected by the problem you are talking about in the petition.

6. Support your petition with visual materials

A well-chosen image attracts attention, so petitions with photo and video materials receive on average 6 times more votes.

Eyewitness interviews can be used as video materials, personal review or materials from open sources, including from the media (follow the publication rules!).

It is advisable to post a video with a duration of 1-2 minutes, with high-quality sound, and the better it reveals your petition, the more votes it will receive.

Step 2. Promote your petition by finding like-minded people

It is important to remember that even an individual appeal has legal force, but an appeal signed by many people receives much higher social significance in the eyes of the authorities and increases your chances of solving the problem.

Help petition

The petition is reviewed by a moderator, and if it complies with the rules and ethics of the Democrat, it is published in the general feed.

The petition gets the opportunity to participate in the weekly newsletter from the Democrat platform.

The petition receives free legal advice from Democrats platform lawyers.

The petition receives the status of a popular petition.

On behalf of the Democrat, an official appeal may be sent to the addressee of the petition.

The vast majority of successful petition authors used social media to spread their petition. For maximum effect Make a post about the petition once every 2-3 days on your accounts and ask your friends about it.

Readers will be more likely to sign your petition if they see that you are a person like them and care about its success. The video should be short and to the point (1-2 minutes). Post it on Youtube and post it on social networks, add the video to the petition page.

Communities and organizations

Local political groups and associations, trade unions, organizations, associations, student groups, etc. – if your topic is close to them, they can provide significant assistance in promoting your petition: attracting the media, consulting, etc.

Discussion of your issue or initiative in the media can have a serious, and sometimes decisive, impact on the success of your petition.
Contact local and federal media, they will be happy to cover an important public initiative or help with a really serious problem.

Keep readers regularly informed of all developments regarding the petition.

Keep your messages short and informative
Link to the page of the addressee of the petition
Use hashtags - people use them to search for topics that interest them.
Share the news on social networks!

Step 3. Achieve your goal

When a petition has received the support of a large number of supporters, it is time to contact the recipient of the petition directly - this step is very important and shows the seriousness of your intentions.

Write a letter to the addressee

The initiation of negotiations to achieve the purpose of the petition must be well thought out.

Clearly formulate your request to the addressee of the petition. The purpose of your letter is to convince the addressee to take the necessary measures.

Write politely, briefly and informatively. The addressees of the petition are usually busy people, so long letters with vague content are ignored.

Avoid threats. Any problem can be solved in a civilized manner, within the legal framework.

Check your spelling: even small mistakes can reduce the credibility of you and your petition. Avoid using CAPITAL LETTERS in your text.

Prepare for the meeting

1. Specify your request to the addressee.
To be convincing during a conversation, you need to very accurately, briefly and succinctly formulate the essence of the problem and the solution you propose.

2. Define your desired outcome.
Think about what will be successful for you in negotiations, what do you want to achieve as a result? This may not only be to satisfy the petition's demands, but also to determine the next step in resolving the problem.

3. Practice different scenarios.
Usually people expect that they will be provided warm welcome and careful consideration of their concerns. But how will you act if you are met with indifference, negative or even hostility?

4. Consider bypassing formal responses from the addressee or his representative.

How to deal with objections

“The recipient of the petition is very busy right now and cannot speak and/or meet with you.”

Be persistent! Find out when and at what exact time the recipient will be able to talk, record this information.

“I’m very sorry, but we are not aware of your request.”

Specify the contact email address, discuss the date and time when the recipient will be able to check it and read your message. After this date, call and confirm receipt of the application.

If the result is negative, send a request by registered mail with notification of delivery.

“I am not the person responsible for these issues”

If this is indeed the case, change the addressee of the petition.

Ask who is responsible and record the answer received - you can later refer to it when communicating with a new recipient of the petition.

If this is an excuse, warn that you are aware of the responsibility of this particular addressee (preferably with reference to specific regulations, laws, etc.), and describe your further steps to develop the campaign.

"We will answer later"

Try to find out exactly in what specific time frame you will receive a response to your appeal.

"We're not going to do anything"

Ask for an official written response and warn about your further actions.

Write in the petition updates about the negative response of the addressee. This will be a reason to activate your supporters and continue the campaign.

"We're going to do something"

This is a good answer, but not a reason to celebrate victory.

Ask the recipient to send you a written response describing the specific steps they plan to take and the time frame. Also find out how you can control these actions.

Actions after the meeting

Share the results with your supporters Continue to develop your petition until you reach your goal.

After some time, write or call the addressee: thank them for the last meeting, remind them about your petition and ask how things are going with resolving your issues.