GivingActionConferenceCalls/NotesSeptember142004

Giving Phone Conference Call: Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Participants: DavidSmith? (new to group), TedErnst, RuthannPrange, JulieEvansCaldwell, GerryGleason, CliffAdams, DougGermann, (CharlesMaclean & LaureDillon entered at the end to say hello)

Activities and catch-up that have resulted from Chicago:

RuthannPrange – Logistically challenges. I was in NY Sun before the Republican convention. Was in NC a couple of weeks – met with colleagues of AshleyCooper, who started this year a camp for foster children. Extraordinary place, people, conversation that wouldn’t have happened without Chicago. Helping mother.

CliffAdams – Have helped answer some questions people set up wiki software. On the call to keep in touch and help out.

DavidSmith? – Met with Julie in DC a couple of weeks ago. I’m on the list serve now. I’m with Mobilizing America’s Youth to get young people engaged in politics, how it effects their live locally, statewide and nationally. Our teams are independent from our national body. We now have 25 teams on HS and college campus. We connected 15 of these communities as we visited each of them on the way to DC – Based in DC, have an office in Berkley California. Want to understand how we can work together.

RA: Do you have a website DS: Mobilize.org RA: Are you aware of America Speaks.

DS: The learning aspects of the March. Top 10 learning. We had some events, the kick off in SF, was co-sponsored with others and attracted 12,000 people. It was great to get our word out and get the wider audience to share our passion. Many of our other events, like in Chicago, the University of Illinois, taking about the future of higher education and what they could do to make changes in their school or state. Other events were held at local bars, 10-15 people talking with beers in their hands, talking about their personal lives. This was very different than the larger platforms. This put a focus on how we grow our teams. Where the larger events were we have no follow-up but where we had the smaller dialogues we now have follow-up and teams in place.

DS: The results are being publised in a book - Takes a young person through how to take their idea into team work to changing policy.

GG: Is working to put collaborative work on-line. DS: We want to put the book on line and be able to have people interact

'JulieEvansCaldwell': Had a great time visiting TedErnst, GerryGleason, MichaelHerman, ValerieMrak, and JamesHung in Chicago. Also visited with SallyProuty and DavidSmith? in DC. Action plan is coming along. Have been working with PhilipCubeta? and others just named on various projects.

'TedErnst' – Similar to Julie, nothing concrete but making lots of connection and see how these different pieces fit. Talking with Michael on how the Giving Market place fit. Michael, Julie and I had a moment and saw how these connections came together despite our differences in language. This weekend went to a moving party for Jill – and we will see something from Michael that he will share next week. Julie and I have started another kind of conference call regarding personal and social change we can invite you to.

'Gerry' - Working on purple wiki. Met with Julie and Ted to participate in the Humanist group in Chicago. Want to be part of this. A request: please post something to the list that something new is at the wiki. I would really like to do some participatory teaching, use open source technology and tools. If there are any places and ways for this to get going I would welcome ideas.

'Doug' – Wanted to listen in and see where everyone else is going. I’m in S. Indiana. We are in the process of putting on a Giving Conference locally. The “Michiana It’s up to us Summit” (Michiana – Michigan and Indiana) – looking for a diverse group of doers (not the check writers), color, age, disabilities, differently-abled, a very wide group of people. Hoping for 20-30 people. February 4-6.

Ted on Inviting Friends and Partners: At the end of the conference Julie asked for champions. I didn’t know what it mean but I signed up anyways because of who Julie is. We talked about the idea of bringing people together. She talked about it as a commons. A group of people coming together that they couldn’t do alone. In the humanist movement we don’t have a centralized hierarchy -- Then Julie coming together to write a business plan of what a commons could actually look like. We went around in circles for along time but we couldn’t get the ideas down. So, we started talking about the Humanist movement and Julie recognized a pattern there and we got Michael on the line and something clicked – it was about inviting friends and partners – we have a group of co-conveners (who open up their rolodex). If I have a team and Julie joins my team she becomes an orientor. So, the three of us talked about the language and what we have in common – we are all working personally (internally) and socially within the world about overcoming suffering. The humanist movement has weekly meetings where we focus on personal change first and the second part to support each other to do our social work. We had our first conference call where we focused on the personal. We had a second call. Our next call is on the 24th.

RA: The upside and downside of language. Those who were asked to open their rolodex in Chicago that was a bounding in and out that was real. David, in your realm how do you language and inform your teams, how do you do it in terms of invitation. How do you do this.

DS: This has been a difficult aspect. Our website is a big recruitment tool. But, basically we need to be face-to-face with each other. Because the language, even as we describe it with each other, we find out our meanings are different. A lot of work interacts with groups that are structured top down. It’s very difficult to talk with others about an idea that is about self-determining what we are doing together. Language is difficult both when you are talking to someone vs reading something on paper.

RA: Would like to see the story about Michael, Ted and Julie meeting together in Chicago yet, doing it over the phone.

GG: Needing to share and exchange our skills to facilitate. For each of us to adequately participate in leading and growing groups.

TE: There are teams and they have a size in which they are no longer effective. Most teams top out at 15-20. Then within the teams, Orientors emerge that form a new team. Participants can organize around an activity (like a local project) and/or around personal change like a meeting or a call who want to work on personal change. If there are 10 people in my team and we have 3-4 projects we find people who want to work on individual projects. The aspect of support – if I’m in a team and there is a person on the team working on a social project that I'm not interested in working on, I’m still there in a weekly meeting assisting that person in their personal work – so, I’m assisting support in their personal development which helps them deliver their project, even though I’m not working or engaged on their project. How this ends up looking in the world, it looks different in each case.

GG: How does this look when there is a project team vs a personal change team.

TE: The weekly meeting is the central organizing point. Then at the meeting people organize whatever other meetings, actions or gatherings need to happen, especially when a social project involves people from multiple teams.

DS: A big part of our overall strategies what that individuals could be part of something bigger =- something that could benefit their own life but also be about helping others. On the immediate side was that we were helping them do something they wanted to do locally about something they cared about.

GG: About being aware of being part of a larger movement has both the local and collective – the humanist movement has the same – personal and social

RA: I’m hearing that there is a clarity of being clear that there are

DS: How have the humanists approached some of the barriers – our language to be bigger than ourselves helped with those who could understand it, but not with all – because as soon as we put names to the March, our website – we stopped receiving support from organizations that we would have liked – because if this becomes a success they might be come a competitor and resources are scarce. Living something without a name allows for people to come in – as soon as you name something it sets up boundaries.

TE: By deciding not to name “it” is different for me. Humanist have a name. We don’t have this problem internationally because there aren't so many competitors and the sectarianism is less – but in the US this may be our problem of being already committed to our identity. We don’t have a legal entity or paid staff nor do we compete for funding.

RA: A downside of the free-formation is not being connected to decision makers and impact on the structures that are. The same thing happens in for-profit orgs – how are the things going on

DS: We had a conversation at the Forum Youth Investment, Sally Prouty was there and many new orgs like us were invited to a discussion about how we might form an ARRP for youth. Thad talked about how permeable the walls are based on who shows up at the meeting and who takes initiative there. Many groups used the language of “let’s not rush into marriage here” -- “how about we date first”. Some groups saw the advantage of jumping in and others were more hesitant and wanted to date because of there existing structure.

GG: Linux started by inviting others to come in and be part of the vision, they could do there little pieces and at the same time he kept his eye on

Followup: RA: Ruth Ann will convene the next meeting - October 12, 12:00 (California time) next meeting JE: Julie offered to post her notes at our wiki

Ted made a few typo fixes and clarified and added to Julie's notes on what he said.