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isidorenabiSo, after Inauguration day and the Women's march I felt like I needed to DO something. Problem is, I've got major social anxiety and I knew that if doing something meant going out and joining an established organizing group, I wouldn't follow through.
I was having pretty apocalyptic visions at the time and it seemed important to me to get back to meeting people face to face, and stop using social media to maintain relationships. So I put out a call to my lady friends and wider circle to see who would be down to meet twice a month, in person, to discuss the resistance and what we could do moving forward. I have so many politically vocal friends, I figured all we needed was a space to meet in, which I could offer, and the rest would flow naturally from there.
I was right and wrong. The great thing about the group is that I have some super talented and competent friends, and to see them meet each other and interact is amazing. They've got some mad skills and the group feels like more than the sum of its parts. The downside of the group is that I have to lead it. I'm not an organizer and I don't know the first thing about leading a group like this.
I did not have clear goals for the meetings. I wanted it to be fun, not a chore. Resistance plus self-care. I limited the group to women from the get-go (sorry guys) to keep it light and free-flowing. I encouraged people to bring snacks, and wine. I wanted to push myself and others to do a little bit more than we would otherwise. I wanted resistance to become part of our routine. I could see that protest was a way of life for less advantaged people, and I wanted to get out of my comfort zone. I very much wanted to avoid any kind of performative activities that made us feel good about ourselves with minimal real impact on the outside world.
In my mind, this meant calling our reps, or e-mailing, or faxing, whatever, and encouraging others in our social circle (particularly those with GOP reps) to do the same. It meant going to protests. It meant paying attention to local politics and educating ourselves about how our political systems operate, how we end up with the candidates we end up with, who represents us at every level and how to hold them accountable. That all felt like very manageable work. To push myself, I considered other actions like canvassing for state legislation (like single-payer health care!) or Swing Left candidates, phone banking, voter registration drives. (Personally, I would love to work on a local campaign.) But I didn't know what other people had in mind, or how far outside of their comfort zone they'd be willing to go.
We've now had 8 meetings. They're Monday or Tuesday evenings. Sometimes ten ladies show up. Sometimes just one. Usually somewhere in between. Almost every time, someone has brought a new friend. Sometimes those friends keep coming. I ask everyone to tell us something that made them feel happy in the last week, even for a minute. I try to have some agenda items in case the conversation lags but I rarely need them. I try not to talk too much, and sometimes I succeed. The women in the group span a wide range of motivation. Some love to call their reps, some hate it but send postcards. Some will go to Oakland for a protest, but not San Francisco. Some will only go to Walnut Creek, because they want to take their kids and don't feel safe in a big city. Some aren't interested in protests or calling their reps, they want to take actions with immediate effect, to help people now. For some, just showing up to the meetings feels like enough.
I sympathize with all of these points of view, but it's challenging to organize all of them around a single action. So I took a poll a couple weeks ago, at the last meeting, and asked what kind of activity they'd be able to commit to if we were to do it as a group. The winner was... bake sale fundraiser. This is not the kind of thing I enjoy doing. But it sounded relatively easy and people seemed to rally behind it. We brainstormed events that we could fundraise at. Bay to Breakers was coming up, which meant hordes of hungry runners with city $$ streaming through Golden Gate Park. It was as good an event as any, with some challenges. It happens early on a Sunday, in the city, and any reasonable Bay Area resident will tell you to stay the hell away from the city on Bay to Breakers race day. But we were going to go in, we were going to wear costumes, we were going to make some noise and sell some cookies.
Fast forward to the day before the race. Far more people were willing to bake cookies than sell them. I had trays and trays of treats but just about everyone had backed out of actually showing up on Sunday morning. The one woman who stuck it out is literally having an MRI due to chronic back pain tomorrow, has not worked all week because of said pain, and I couldn't schlep everything by myself. We tried to brainstorm other places to fundraise in the East Bay but ultimately settled on holding a faux yard sale at my house (to lure customers in) and set up a lemonade stand (since no one can resist little girls selling lemonade). We got some neighbors to come by but threw in the towel after a couple hours. I felt defeated and disappointed, and guilty about all the treats people had made that would go to waste. I don't blame anybody - everyone had legit reasons not to show up on Sunday - but we are having a meeting on Tuesday and I need to think about what to say to them. I'm working really hard not to let this get to me. In general this group has been a boost for my mental health but it really took a hit today.
There are some lessons to be learned here. One, we planned our event on fairly short notice. Next time I'll look for a date about a month out. Two, I'll make sure we have X number of women on board and truly committed to the activity. It's easy to talk about holding a bake sale when you're sitting around a table drinking wine with friends, but when it came down to it, nobody had actually committed to coming that Sunday. There was a lot of enthusiasm in the moment but it didn't translate to action. I knew there would be attrition but I didn't have a contingency plan when it came down to just me holding the bag.
Honestly if it were up to me, we would not bother with doing a bake sale again. It seems like a lot of work for (as we learned today) potentially very low reward. If we want to go out and do a group activity, I'd rather go to a town hall or table for a candidate or do voter registration. Those are all things I would not sign up to do by myself, but that we could have fun with if we did it together. There will be more opportunities for those things the closer we get to the 2018 elections. But I will try again, because we've learned those lessons and I think we can raise some money (and have fun) if we do it properly.
In other news, I think I have Ammon on board to get a dog... he agreed to come to the shelter with me and the girls. I still have some serious concerns about whether we *should* have a dog but visiting a shelter will be the first step.
I was having pretty apocalyptic visions at the time and it seemed important to me to get back to meeting people face to face, and stop using social media to maintain relationships. So I put out a call to my lady friends and wider circle to see who would be down to meet twice a month, in person, to discuss the resistance and what we could do moving forward. I have so many politically vocal friends, I figured all we needed was a space to meet in, which I could offer, and the rest would flow naturally from there.
I was right and wrong. The great thing about the group is that I have some super talented and competent friends, and to see them meet each other and interact is amazing. They've got some mad skills and the group feels like more than the sum of its parts. The downside of the group is that I have to lead it. I'm not an organizer and I don't know the first thing about leading a group like this.
I did not have clear goals for the meetings. I wanted it to be fun, not a chore. Resistance plus self-care. I limited the group to women from the get-go (sorry guys) to keep it light and free-flowing. I encouraged people to bring snacks, and wine. I wanted to push myself and others to do a little bit more than we would otherwise. I wanted resistance to become part of our routine. I could see that protest was a way of life for less advantaged people, and I wanted to get out of my comfort zone. I very much wanted to avoid any kind of performative activities that made us feel good about ourselves with minimal real impact on the outside world.
In my mind, this meant calling our reps, or e-mailing, or faxing, whatever, and encouraging others in our social circle (particularly those with GOP reps) to do the same. It meant going to protests. It meant paying attention to local politics and educating ourselves about how our political systems operate, how we end up with the candidates we end up with, who represents us at every level and how to hold them accountable. That all felt like very manageable work. To push myself, I considered other actions like canvassing for state legislation (like single-payer health care!) or Swing Left candidates, phone banking, voter registration drives. (Personally, I would love to work on a local campaign.) But I didn't know what other people had in mind, or how far outside of their comfort zone they'd be willing to go.
We've now had 8 meetings. They're Monday or Tuesday evenings. Sometimes ten ladies show up. Sometimes just one. Usually somewhere in between. Almost every time, someone has brought a new friend. Sometimes those friends keep coming. I ask everyone to tell us something that made them feel happy in the last week, even for a minute. I try to have some agenda items in case the conversation lags but I rarely need them. I try not to talk too much, and sometimes I succeed. The women in the group span a wide range of motivation. Some love to call their reps, some hate it but send postcards. Some will go to Oakland for a protest, but not San Francisco. Some will only go to Walnut Creek, because they want to take their kids and don't feel safe in a big city. Some aren't interested in protests or calling their reps, they want to take actions with immediate effect, to help people now. For some, just showing up to the meetings feels like enough.
I sympathize with all of these points of view, but it's challenging to organize all of them around a single action. So I took a poll a couple weeks ago, at the last meeting, and asked what kind of activity they'd be able to commit to if we were to do it as a group. The winner was... bake sale fundraiser. This is not the kind of thing I enjoy doing. But it sounded relatively easy and people seemed to rally behind it. We brainstormed events that we could fundraise at. Bay to Breakers was coming up, which meant hordes of hungry runners with city $$ streaming through Golden Gate Park. It was as good an event as any, with some challenges. It happens early on a Sunday, in the city, and any reasonable Bay Area resident will tell you to stay the hell away from the city on Bay to Breakers race day. But we were going to go in, we were going to wear costumes, we were going to make some noise and sell some cookies.
Fast forward to the day before the race. Far more people were willing to bake cookies than sell them. I had trays and trays of treats but just about everyone had backed out of actually showing up on Sunday morning. The one woman who stuck it out is literally having an MRI due to chronic back pain tomorrow, has not worked all week because of said pain, and I couldn't schlep everything by myself. We tried to brainstorm other places to fundraise in the East Bay but ultimately settled on holding a faux yard sale at my house (to lure customers in) and set up a lemonade stand (since no one can resist little girls selling lemonade). We got some neighbors to come by but threw in the towel after a couple hours. I felt defeated and disappointed, and guilty about all the treats people had made that would go to waste. I don't blame anybody - everyone had legit reasons not to show up on Sunday - but we are having a meeting on Tuesday and I need to think about what to say to them. I'm working really hard not to let this get to me. In general this group has been a boost for my mental health but it really took a hit today.
There are some lessons to be learned here. One, we planned our event on fairly short notice. Next time I'll look for a date about a month out. Two, I'll make sure we have X number of women on board and truly committed to the activity. It's easy to talk about holding a bake sale when you're sitting around a table drinking wine with friends, but when it came down to it, nobody had actually committed to coming that Sunday. There was a lot of enthusiasm in the moment but it didn't translate to action. I knew there would be attrition but I didn't have a contingency plan when it came down to just me holding the bag.
Honestly if it were up to me, we would not bother with doing a bake sale again. It seems like a lot of work for (as we learned today) potentially very low reward. If we want to go out and do a group activity, I'd rather go to a town hall or table for a candidate or do voter registration. Those are all things I would not sign up to do by myself, but that we could have fun with if we did it together. There will be more opportunities for those things the closer we get to the 2018 elections. But I will try again, because we've learned those lessons and I think we can raise some money (and have fun) if we do it properly.
In other news, I think I have Ammon on board to get a dog... he agreed to come to the shelter with me and the girls. I still have some serious concerns about whether we *should* have a dog but visiting a shelter will be the first step.
