Remembering a Giant Man of Faith and Action

Many are thinking this week of Vaclav Havel, playwright, activist, rebel, man-about-town, President and philosopher. The world is poorer for his passing.

Today I've been on the road with Lindsay and Elisabeth Balint of Toledo and Budapest (Great Lakes Consortium)and Mate Varga of Budapest (Civil College and Hungarian Community Development Association) and his friend Csabo to Szentendre, a beautiful village about a half hour upriver on the Danube from Budapest. This is a living town that has seven historic churches, windy narrow streets, ethnic roots in Serbian, Greek Orthodox, Calvinist and Roman Catholic ccommunities and a lively arts tradition.

It was also the family home of Father Martin Hernady, who spent 45 years in Toledo Ohio as pastor of St. Stephen's Church in the Birmingham neighborhood. He was an educated man, read history and literature, appreciated art and sport, skied in the Alps when he could, loved conversation and was great company. He was also a consummate political man, who might have been at home among the Medicis or the Hapsburgs. As a parish priest he saw that the power of the church grows from its people, and the job of the church was to serve the needs of those people wisely. It was Hernady who thought, when the city announced plans to widen the road between the parish and the neighborhood, let's hold Mass in the middle of the street! The ladies came out - Father said it would be ok - and they made news, and the Mayor came over and the neighborhood organized and the plans got changed.

Hernady was a national leader among Hungarian Americans and other ethnics as well, conspiring with Msgr. Geno Baroni to bring together the Black, brown and broke - the urban ethnics and the other disempowered people to defend cities and families and communities.

He welcomed me in to the Birmingham neighborhood when I arrived in Toledo in July of 1981. He was a wise advisor, and a great strategist who was willing to risk his status when the people were ready to act. He knew the politicians would come around once the people put on enough pressure. He often quoted me a Latin political truth (maybe it was his own...) and that's what I wrote on the wrapping paper on the floweres that Elizabeth Balint brought for the gravesite today. "Mundus Vult Decipi" he'd say. "The world wants to be fooled." Sure enough the politicians took credit for the new truck route outside the community.

Hernady knew how to support leaders - he promoted young acivists like Peter Ujvagi (later City councillor, State Rep and now County Administrator) and Marcy Kaptur (city planner and now US Congresswoman). He retired to home (over here) but Birmingham was his home, too.

Thanks for your strength and your wisdom, Father Hernady. It was good to visit you today. I hope we make you proud!

Budapest, Looking Back

So the Work Days turned out to be quite full, very little time for blogging. I'll go through in order, but it's Tuesday and Lindsay and I are off to our favorite bookstore/tea house in the old castle district of Budapest to celebrate our 31st anniversary in quiet style!

Day one in Banska Bystrica we drove in from Budapest with Mate Varga of Hungary and Elizabeth Balint of Toledo and Budapest. We arrived, grabbed a coffee and went to work, reviewing 66 applications for the exchange program that will bring 14 US organizers here and 28 europeans to the US for 6 weeks. The task was to identify the first 16. I guess it's a lot like the Needmor proposal reading process. For every applicant there are three or four others out there who are interested, involved in good work but just couldn't get away for 6 weeks. Every applicant represents a story - and reading and hearing about these stories is tremendously encouraging. One Roma (gypsy) woman told of her struggle to please her family as a "perfect Roma girl" but breaking out to prove that this could also include going to college, getting a job, causing a stir, standing up for herself. I admit to being touched by her courage.

The process goes on - we'll meet some of the Hungarian applicants later today. But by 7:30 that night when we finally broke for dinner, we had sixteen names (the tentative list) and possible "matches" for the US organizations they'd visit. The reality is unfolding - in Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania there will be this year (2012) a lot of meeting, preparation, travel and training. At the end, there will be a new generation of activists who know what they mean when they say "community organizing" and are - together - doing it!

A picture of the food at our lodgings (the Kuria) in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia. More toomorrow.

Food Food Food!

Wowee have we had some great food! Even though I shouldn't eat chocolate, I decided to go for it while in Belgium - and that is some FINE chocolate! A totally OTHER thing from even the best US stuff...be nice to us and you may get a taste when we get home!

and the Fries - frites in Belgium are best when cooked in the outdoor stands, because it's there where they're twice-cooked in "animal fat". We got the best from a stand behind a church, with bearnaise sauce - one of twenty-four choices (mayonnaise, ketchup...). See accompanying picture.

Very good also when accompanying Moules - mussels. I had two big kettles of Moules, one with a lobster-bisque sauce, one served a mariniere - sort of a celery clear soup that was VERY good dipped with crusty bread...

The Best Restaurant goes to the Taverne du Passage, a classic bistro type spot in the old fashioned covered gallery shopping area that was frequented by Victor Hugo and Jacques Brel and Georges Simenon. This place (see pic) had starched linen table cloths and waiters with gold braid epaulets on their starched white jackets and champagne chilling on the bar in a shell-shaped bucket! Lindsay had the same meal basically twice - a vegetable soup, slightly creamy, leeky, one night squash flavored and the next green pea-flavored; followed by a true filet of sole meuniere, served with a fish knife of course, buttery and perfectly cooked, beautiful fresh flavor, with braised endive one night. She had the light flavored Maes beer in an elegant glass. I had the herring - pickled and basking on a fresh pickled vegetable salad of peas, carrots and capers. Then the Moules the first night. The dessert on night #1 was Sorbet du Cassis - a black currant flavor almost too intense, and two big scoops. I had profiteroles - three crusty light globes of pastry with creme inside and ice cream, with dark hot fudge over top. We crawled out, moaning. My meal the second night - I had read that Jacques Brel ordered this - was cheese croquettes - two breaded lightly fried hunks of creamy, runny cheese, with a pile of flash fried parsley and fresh lemon to squeeze over. Then Tete du Veau avec Sauce Grimiche - literally Head of Calf. Piping hot, three hunks of tongue and five big pieces of (what can I say...) were a bit of meat, gristle and luscious fat and skin, braised and creamy and rich. The sauce was a mystery, but delicious - bright yellow, obviously some boiled egg chopped in. Afterwards, the waiter explained it's a fresh mayonnaise made with capers, pickles, fresh herbs and - yes - a bit of the calves brains mixed in. If only you could have been there!

A big surprise, a timely find, was Charlie's Boulangerie, near St. Catherine's Square. A bright, light, modern place, very crowded on a Sunday morning, where we sat at a counter and drank black dark oily coffee and ate hot fresh croissants and brioche and a cherry clafouti - a little eggy cupcake with sour cherries. Part of the delight of the place was watching the guys behind the glass in the kitchen putting fresh baguettes into the giant rotating ovens and making fresh sandwiches with thin crusty mini-baguettes and fresh apple slices and great long hunks of brie and the other ones with smoked ham sliced see-through thin and stone ground mustard and fresh tomato. The bag of ten "choux" was a yummy 1.5 euro super find..little puff pastry balls with sugar on top that broke into nothing but buttery crust and flavor in the mouth!

But the official Best Meal of the Trip, so far...today's midday meal, at the table in Elizabeth Balint's newly renovated apartment here in Budapest. Cooked mostly by her mother...it started with Elizabeth's cheese spread, orange and crunchy and creamy, on fresh rye bread. Then a light, fresh vegetable soup. Then Chicken Paprikas, falling off the bone, on top of homemade egg noodles with sour cream to top it off. Then...drum roll...a cut glass dish of delight, a chestnut puree dish to die for. Whipped cream and thin strands of chestnut puree (mixed with rum, of course) and sour cherries perched all around. We ate firsts, we ate seconds, we cleaned up the last few spoonfuls, we scraped the spoon, we licked the plates and the bowls. We are happy, and an hour's walk by the Danube at sunset restored equilbrium and a bit of self respect. We may get more later!

We won't dwell on the street food - might have been a mistake to choose what we did, but we got caught up in the drama of the Christmas Market. We are looking forward to Kajo's Mom's Mushroom soup, of course. We loved the light dinner at the little place near the church where we ate quiche and salad and croque monsiieur. But it'll be tough to beat Mrs. Balint.

All Music!

The first thing we do when contemplating travel is to check for music events - and Brussels has really delivered! For our musical friends, here's a listing with some oohing and aahing!

First was Les samedi's de l'orgue (Saturdays of the Organ) concert series - this was in an old church, kind of beat up, called Notre-Dame aux Riches Claires. (Great story - the Poor Clare's were the big deal back in the day. A bunch of women were ok with all the rules except poverty, so they were chartered as the Rich Clares!) Gruesomely uncomfortable chairs (90 degree backs, low to the ground, small) but the young guy Yoann Tardivel (fast fingers and toes!) put together an hour that entranced and impresssed: Georg Boehm, Girolamo Frescobaldi (tedious) Dietrich Buxtehude (stirring) Benoit Mernier (modern, strange, fascinating) and JS Bach to take it home! (this was free)

That was 5 to 6 pm. We walked over to the area for the next concert, ate soup and quiche and croque monsieur (ham and cheese hot sandwiches) then to the Eglise des Minimes for (gulp) 30 euros each (seventy five bucks or so). Big high ceilinged, beat up old church, square in layout. There we heard the Huelgas Ensemble present five hymns from the Eton Choir Book. Greatest hits of 1490, these were swirling meldy and harmony, a capella voices, hypnotic and beatuful, echoing in the great church building, each voice lifted by the others. We were dazed by the beauty. (although an hour and a half in the same d*mnd chairs nearly crippled me!) One of the singers (a Brit) told us afterwards that it was a transcendent experience to sing it...

Monday - today - started with the 12th annual Lundi D'Orgue (Monday of the Organ!) at a ratty looking (outside) church called Eglise Notre-Dame du Finistere (Our Lady of the Ends of the Earth. The inside was beautiful, dark wood and Mary Chapel and an unbelievable organ (see pictures). Bart Jacobs (organist at the Brussels Cathedral) played four pieces by A. DeBoeck. More conventional, beautiful, not so interesting but still... (This was also free.)

Tonite we went all the way - paid the 60 euro's (with Senior Discount) and sat in the Perfect Seats in the Palais des Beaux-Arts, a stunning art-deco concert hall, and heard the Ricercar Consort play and sing four Bach Christmas Cantatas. Top quality soloists, interesting looking instruments (four long stretchy trumpets, three different sized oboes, a little organ and a harpsichord) and we were once again uplifted, transported, blown away, walked out humming and dancing. And no it was NOT the Belgian beer Lindsay drank right before. Great music!

We'll look in Budapest and Slovakia - but we've got work to do there.

We also enjoyed the anonymous accordion player somwhere up the steps in the dark as we walked to the metro from the concert - very Paris film noir!

Oh, and I'm listening to Jacques Brel as I write.

Ah, music!

Touring Slow and Easy

Ah, the days slip by... Some great meals - more below - some very educational museum visits, about 11,674 miles of walking. Just what we'd hoped for!

The first touring day we got lost looking for the way from the train station to the Grand Place...and saw block after block of government and NGO buildings on our way to getting back on track. When we took the walking tour, we were seeing lots of places for the second time! A very energetic and knowledgeable Fernando took six of us in tow - two Italians, a Catalan a cheery little woman (business lawyer!) from Ho Chi Minh City and me and L - and although the basic rap was in English, he'd lapse into Spanish and Italian at key points to ensure he was understood. He was born in Argentina to Slovak/Hungarian family, and has a Belgian girlfriend. He said they spend a summer here and a summer there - I didn't ask what he was doing freezing here in December!

Anyhow, he gave us the history and politics of the place - how the French Burgundies and the Spanish Holy Roman Emmperors and the German neighbors ebbed and flowed over the place, ending up with One Country and three languages and FIVE parliaments in this little town - Europe, Belgium, Brussels region, the French language communities and the Flemish/Walloon region! Lots and lots of diplomats, attaches and secretaries, lots of temporary real estate demand, strange ethnicities, food and culture. Looking at the Royal Palace, we learned about King Leopold II who got the Congo for himself (not Belgium!), who loved columns (you can recognise his buildings...) and who copied his cousin Queen Victoria's palace gates.

Surprizes from the touring day - Art Nouveau with its leafy vines and wooden decoration was called here "Congo Style", influenced by the exotic woods and jungle experiences of the colonialists. The City Hall was built first one half with a gate at the end, then the tower and the other half. They were uneven, so the gate is off center to the tower and the gallery on the right proportioned to correct visually for the uneven size. (see pic's). The park where the beheadings took place when the Inquisition turned Belium into "Catholic or dead" was re-purposed to honor enlightenment, and ringed with statues representing the workers who came up through there to serve the rich at the top of the hill from the stinking swamp at the bottom. The Palace of Justice was built to impress - even to crush the spirit of the little people who might seek justice there. My first thought upon walking in was - a building can be big enough to inspire or ennoble. Bigger, it can dwarf or overwhelm. Sure enough, our guide showed us the long long long steps that linked the poor area at the bottom of the hill - built to discourage access. He said Hitler visited and was so impressed he asked his architects to copy it. Government or public buildings signal their linguistic identity with their flag - the red rooster for French, the iris flower for Flemish.

Finally, a lot of the historic buildings were demolished in the name of "Brusselization" - providing roads, boulevards and parking. Progress!

More later - I'll include some pictures. I'm eating the chocolate, by the way....and it's all it's said to be! The potatoes are fried twice (the best in animal fat) and the chocolate only heated once...so we're told.

First Day - Currency, Crepes and Nietzche

Tuesday drive to the airport - thanks Judson! - was enlivened by the sight of TWO bald eagles perching over the swamp by the side of the road - if I were superstitious, this would be a very good omen! Overnight flight uneventful, sleepless. Quick cab ride to the place here in Brussels and as I pay the cabbie - a nice young fellow - he says he can't change the 50Euro note that I just got from the cash machine. A mad search in the darkness - it's pretty much night-like at 7:30 AM here - nobody can change this fifty! No shops are open, no passersby have the cash - we drive around, we try another cash machine - only fifties - and finally I give him US$. I knew I should have bought a coffee at the airport!

The place is wonderful - spacious, modern, with a roof garden that makes me wish we were here in May! We nap - and half a day later, we get up! Walk around to orient ourselves and buy house food - and we find a delightful local park. A few pictures here - the walk way is paved with stones in an interesting pattern - and eventually I realize that many are old grave stones - not at all creepy, quite an interesting detail in fact.

Dinner at the neighborhood french cuisine restaurant, La Marquis - magnificent food, mussels with a sort of creamy lobster bisque sauce,french fries from paradise, veal cordon bleu with homemade noodles, and a heavenly apple crepe for dessert! And Karim the Moroccan owner, dapper in a silk jacket and jeans, funny in French and Franglais - we end up somehow discussing why he is an atheist, what role the thinking of Nietzche and others played, etc etc. Great first day!

I spent a little time thinking about fundraising for ECON - I hope readers are ready - there's a pitch coming. Investing in democracy, supporting good work, a great opportunity...the letter will tell the story.

Today we're off to tour - lace, chocolate, art...we'll see what we see!

Here We Go...Again!

Getting organized to visit Brussels for R&R...then Banska Bistrica for three intense days of ECON consultation. Watch this space!

Picture is an ECON team meetup in Toledo this September.

Down to Business

Katowice is a tough town. There used to be 6 working coal mines here, steel mills, shipping. They're down to 3 working mines, lots of the steel mills are closed. The place feels like Pittsburgh, with a Soviet city planner set loose. Older buildings are grimy, or overly serious, "soviet style". Unemployment is low - lots of students, people are still making it. But its a gritty, tough place.

Bona Fides is a Good Government group, and they've had some success in the five or so years they've been at it. Led by an energetic Katowice enthusiast, Grzegorz, they have a staff of 8 or so (part timers, shared staff, etc.) and they're all young, smart, ambitious and energetic. For two or three years they've been struggling to get a community organizing project started. Twice they reached out to do one-on-ones in target areas. Once another community engagement, community planning process came in on top of the organizing work and they held back to let it work. Another time the area was just too far from the office, the part time staffers couldn't sustain the effort along with all the watchdog stuff they were already committed to.

Bona Fides was supposed to be represented at this meeting in Szczecin by the Director and the lead organizer, Dagmara. Something came up, and another staffer, Martyna came in his place. Dagamara and Martyna charged right in to the Training of Trainers and Introduction to Organing sessions. They connected with the two young women from Romania who've been at it a little longer than them. They stayed up late at night, trading stories, hearing about the reality in other places - Bosnia, Ukraine, Slovakia.

It worked - they got more and more serious about making it happen, this time.

Chuck Hirt and I were scheduled to visit Katowice after the training. We met with Grzegorz on Sunday. Although he was coming down with a flu bug, he sat with us and planned out the two day staff meeting. "If we can get the whole staff really committed, I think we can make it work." But he said Martyna had been the most skeptical of a community organizing approach. He was concerned there would continue to be tensions.

On Monday we met at their offices - upstairs in a dingy building, seven or eight desks to a room, one room heated at a time - the typical NGO/community office. First, the two staff reported on what they'd learned, what they'd seen, what they brought home. (They reported in Polish. Chuck and I stood by, and I interjected some questions; "what surprised you? Who did you connect with? What inspired you?") Martyna was clear - all her questions had been answered,, she could see that it could be done. "If they can do it in Romania, we can do it here!"

Then I led them through a tough back-and-forth. What happened the last two times? You have lots of visibility, lots of access, lots of process wins with open government reforms. WHY do you want to organise? What can you get out of it? What will make it different this time? Grzegorz and the team said it ten different ways. What they had was access and influence - they lacked power. When an issue came up that they couldn't win they walked away. (He took us by the empty hole in the ground where the historic train station in the City Centre was demolished over feeble protest.) At one point he excused himself to take a media call. Sheepishly he reported it was a reporter looking for comment on wines and culinary trends. He knew it - he was becoming a fixed figure, as public character, and the peoples' voice was no stronger than before. "We keep winning process reforms like the right to propose legislation by initiative, but there are no citizens that are ready to take advantage of them."

Before we went to lunch, we agreed they'd settle for once and all the answer to the big questions: are we doing a community organizing project, who's the lead organizer, where will we work, will we stay with it and WHY!"

As you see from the picture, Chuck and I sat together. We talked about the food (great!) the weather (cold, a bit of snow) and our kids. The staff rattled away in Polish at the other end of the table.

When we started back up, they had an 18 month budget, one person entirely committed to the work, others contributing time, and a turf targeted.

The rest of the time was spent on details. How many one-on-ones? What commitments do we need in writing from management? What do we do when the city or the press or somebody tries to get to the community process through Bona Fides? Where do we get advice? But the whole tone had changed - not whether but when; not why it fsiled but how to do it right this time. By the end, we had hammered out a six month plan, with solid next steps.

It won't be easy, but they've settled the obstacles they couldn't overcome before - dedicated specific staff for enough time and no interference from other priorities. They'll have plenty of problems, but I expect great things from Dagmara, the lead organizer and the rest of the team - Ewa, Agata, Katarzyna and Martyna. Tough times don't last - tough people do!

OK, this is going to sound weird, but...

All of a sudden there are bees everywhere!

At the start of the ECON planning and structure sessions, I was asked to reflect on the State of ECON from my semi-long distance point of view. I had to be honest, and I started off with a laundry list of problems, issues, lacks and needs. But then I brought The Bee.

Geraldine Jensen started a nationwide movement of women fighting for better endforcement of child support. From nothing (she literally collected change from the couch cushions to take out the ad inviting others to join her in Toledo) she built a 30,000 member giant organization, led almost entirely by volunteers, that literally turned tghe numbers around The statistics went from a 20% collection rate to 80%, with lots of better rules and structural changes. They took as their mascot the humble bumble bee - there's no aerodynamic explanation, no physics to explain how the ungainly misshapen thing could ever fly - but it flies anyway! We can do it! they said, and despite the odds, the system and the power and the lack of money, training or "experts" on their side, they did it!

I suggested that the evidence is that ECON is a true Bumble Bee organization. There they are, in the most unlikely countries, with decades of dictatorship, distrust and corruption, with no foundations with local money, with awkward rules and little tradition of civic engagement...and here are teams from nine countries, smart ambitious dedicated young people, passionate elders who've transcended their history and lots and lots of experimentation, creativity and guts, making something happen.

After the language barrier was passed...(see previous post)...the metaphor caught on, and on we went forward with planning.

So as Kajo and Chuck and I are leaving Szczecin, we stopped for souvenirs. There was a stack of cups with this bee motif (see picture). And when Chuck and I were headed to lunch after Mass at the cathedral in Katowice, we passed by this doorway with a big BEE over the lintel (see other picture). We stopped into the Mariacka Church, one of Katowice's oldest, and the nature windows, in addition to spiders and peacocks and turtles...had BEES!

It's a little spooky, don't you think?

Ochiul Dracului - the Devil's Eye

Nicoleta Chirita of Romania (newly elected to the ECON leadership team, and pictured above trying to convince Tara from Paris to attend the community meeting)) tells us, in the Money for Organizing session on Friday morning, that in Romanian they say money is the Devil's Eye - pronounced "ok-yool drahkyoolooey...and that's why they don't talk about it!

We struggled with the context in these countries - no real base of local foundations, little or no government funding except for projects, big international donors whose rules constrict or mis-fit the patient process of reaching out, building consensus, engaging leaders, developing plans, taking on the issues that people choose rather than the hot issue of the day...real organizing is tough to fund. Add to that distrust of everything, built up over decades of totalitarian rule...

So we struggled and found ways. Ismet and Jasmina are two young organizers from Bosnia. (He's the "guard standing behind the Lady Mayor in the role-play picture; she's the dark haired woman in the Circle of Power exercise.) They are getting great (and free!) help from Jesuit Volunteer Corps folks from Germany - they stay for a year, and by month three or four can handle the language well enough to really contribute. Peter, the teacher, writer and organizing leader from Germany (another new ECON leader) has an idea that the health conversion foundation model could be used in Germany - he says that when non-profit hospitals go to for-profit now they ask for subsidies from public sources - and that ain't right! Iryna and Olga from Ukraine point out that in the network of ECON there's lots of great success - folks who've gotten support from USAID, their local community foundations, Mott and Rockefeller and German Marshall Fund and others - maybe they could learn from each other how to tell the story of organizing more successfully. Could the network, and some of us who know and support their work, convene the funders who DO fund organizing here and together strategise how to organize more money for organizing? (Sound familiar?)

Folks were delighted to hear about the resources of the Alliance for Justice and the RECO website - Resources for Evaluating Community Organizing. They heard the story of NCRP's series of studies to document the effectiveness of advocacy and organizing, and they're thinking about documenting their own stories - organizing in Central and Eastern Europe works - and we can prove it! The structural obstacles are being addressed too - in Bosnia charitable gifts are taxed, creating a dis-incentive, so the NGO sector is trying to get this changed.

Ismet works with young people (he's pretty young, to me...). As we discussed the cultural taboos related to money in all these countries, I told the story of our daughter, Schuyler's high school project. In most familes and between young people and adults, it's really hard to talk about sex. The result (just like not talking about money in organizing) is that misinformation leads to bad choices and problems that could be avoided just get worse. Sky made a film called "Let's Talk About Sex" to help get the conversation started! Ismet is seriously considering a short video that shows folks whispering and gossiping and avoiding the ever-so-sensitive topic of money in their organization. Any investors out there?

The lesson here is that money is power...if you don't have your own, somebody else's is gonna get you! Raising money isn't what you do instead of organizing - raising money IS organizing. ECON is on the road to open, honest and constructive discussion and effective local and common action on money - and it's going to be very instructive!

On Language

So a brief note on language. Many organizers are familiar with the challenges of working in more than one language. Last year I experienced doing training with a translator - and that taught a lot about being clear, understanding the cultural nuances, etc.

This meeting of 40+ people is being conducted in English, as the common tongue, and most people are proficient enough - and that's humbling. Some folks are proficient in more than their "home" language plus English. Kajo, my teacher and co-trainer, says he can speak and read in Slovak, Czech, English, Russian, and understand Ukrainian, Polish, Serb/Croat language and get along in Hungarian as well as cursing and getting directions in Chechen language. Nicholeta Chirita from Rumania is fluent in her home language of Rumanian, as well as English and French and she's getting better in Russian.

I've rediscovered the German I used to speak and read fluently (40 years ago I read Kafka and Nietsche and Hesse and at least thought I understood). I could follow along in Peter's Alinsky book and when the organizer from Leipzig and I were assigned to problem solve the question of funding for the work here, she spoke German and I spoke English and we actually communicated (I think).

At the end of this morning I gave a twenty minute reflection on my sense of the State of the ECON Network. I told what I thought was a catchy story - the story of the Bumble Bee, which science says can't fly - aerodynamically it's a disaster. The bee doesn't know this, though, and it flies nevertheless. A third of the people chuckled knowingly at my witty analogy. A third turned to their neighbor and asked in Polish or Rumanian or German or French or ..."what did he say?" and a third just smiled politely.

Once again I learned the lesson that I need to speak simply, clearly and without confusing my audience.

I ended with an observation, and advice in the old common language, Latin. On the twin sundials in the courtyard of the palace here in Szczecin, you'll read, "Vita Brevis, Carpe Diem". Thus my advice to ECON - Life is Short, Seize the Day!

I attach a picture of yesterday's walk-around town, which was followed by more excellent soup (zurek, the sour rye and vegetable ambrosia) and pierogi. But more on food later.

Done! (But not really)

That's it for the two day intensive Training-of-Trainers series. The meeting goes on, and I'll be doing one-on-ones and meetings with country teams, and one more formal training session on the role of the consultant organiser. Wow, what an experience!

First and foremost I've treasured the chance to invent a new training and carry it out with my respected colleague from Slovakia, Kajo Zboril. He's a lively, wise trainer, but a little quiet, deliberate, and calm - my opposite! We planned, talked, performed and debriefed and corrected and adapted and revised - we got better as we went along, he helped me see possibilities and options in the design - in the end, we developed a very good working team-ship. We agreed our ambition is to do lots more training together.

The design - I wrote a curriculum for a two day training in organizing - ten sessions. We set up the room with two "fronts" - titled "DO" and "Reflect". Essentially the design was for teams (the group was divided into three teams) to prepare and lead the whole group through one of the sessions, then to break, turn the whole room around, and reflect on that session. We de-briefed in terms of Macro design (how did this session fit into the larger design) Micro design (did the plan for this 90 minute session work) and Technique (how did the trainers perform) then we addressed how the participants might adapt this to their own work. The "fix" came when Kajo and I decided that the teams that were not preparing to lead a session should design a real-life adaptation for their home country.

Best line (or one of many) came in the role play of the meeting with the mayor of an imaginary city. Young organizer Radu from Romania was playing the leader who "pins" the mayor. When the mayor started to complain about the difficulties of the city budget, he said, "Madame Mayor, WE are the city budget!" I'm gonna steal that one!

The ending was a session Charlene Sinclair and I did in Detroit many years ago for the first time...there it was called "Message to Martin". In this version we set two chairs in the center of the circle. A person came in, set a paper with the name of someone who is not here on the chair opposite, and said words to that person. I said, to start off, to Martin Luther King, "Thanks for your inspiration and example, all those years ago. We're still at it, and I want to introduce you to these brothers and sisters who are in it together!" (Of course I barely got through this - you know I'm sentimental...) Next, Kajo posted the name of his son, Adam, who's eight. He said, "here I am, away from home again. If you were here you'd know why - I work with these great people, we learn together, we have important things to do - it's for you, for our future, and I know you'll understand." Next, the woman from Paris, Tara - she works with immigrant and disconnected youth and minority and excluded communities. She posted up the name of French president Nicolas Sarkozy. "Thanks, Mr. President for bringing us together and getting us mad and gicving us reason to organise. I want to let you know - we're coming for you, and you're going down!" Her colleague, Reda, posted "Europeans". "Don't be afraid of change, it's happening, we can do this." And on it went.

At dinner I heard the story from the Rumanian group. They are working in neighborhoods, and with people who resist doorknocking and outreach because they remember when putting your name on a petition could mean risking your livelihood or your life. Building trust within shattered communities is always a challenge - it seems especially hard here, and in oither recently totalitarian countries. They're making slow progress, but it's the young, bright and ambitious people (like most of the organizers here), who never lived with that chilling fear, who are rebuilding the skills of public life.

The Germans who work with Paul Cromwell are especially interesting. They are struggling in a socety that's bureaucratic, has all the forms of public life but where anti-immigrant feeling is rising, negative politics are taking hold, and the danger of crushing apathy is one of the big obstacles. What a diverse team - elders, working people, men and women, a Somali-German woman (who told of her visit to the Somali immigrant community in Columbus, OH). One of their number is a professor named Peter Szynka who gave me a copy of his book on Saul Alinsky - I'm struggling through the German, but it's fun to see my favorite quotes in a strange language. Can anybody get this one: „Macht Euch keine Sorgen. Wir werden diesen Sturm der Anerkennung überstehen und man wird uns bald wieder hassen wie zuvor.“ I believe it's a real contribution to the Alinsky literature - focusing on the scientific, intellectual and academic traditions and forebears to his theory and practice. Translators out there? Publishers?

I'm meeting with the Ukrainian team later - they're smart, ambitious and have planted groups in six places. I predict real power will grow there.

A few pictures above, and more news later. (I didn't get a picture of the mound of joy from the Columbus Restaurant on the riverfront bastion by the castle - pillows of happiness, filled with cheese, potato or meat, topped with bacon, a sprig of fresh herb....more of that when I write the food blog.)

Day two...less fruit!

Day one of training for trainers starts with an exercise that involves juggling (or trying to juggle) tangerines - I can explain later - and the room was jumping! The whole place smelled lkike oranges all day, and a nutritious leson learned by all!

And we practiced holding the Mayor accountable, as well. These pictures will pique your interest for a longer post, later.

Ready, set...

Today's the day - Forty folks from nine countries all focused on community organising! Yesterday we prepared - that's me and Kajo, studying our curriculum and Chuck helping me collect training tools. Then more walking around - this is a VERY catholic country! I saw churches full at three o'clock mass, and bells all day. Collected some great spire pictures.

AND I found the Scouts Memorial. Rep. Marcy Kaptur has told us the story of the heroic stand of the scouts in Poland, actively resisting both the Nazis and the Russians, and of the continuing role this organisation plays in civil society in Poland. Yesterday we found the plaque that commemorates the founding of Polish scouting here in Szczecin! Pictures later.

Ok, to breakfast and then to work! (More also later on the joyous reunions with various folks we met last year, and their stories of success!)

I'm here! (there?)

In Szczecin, where the training starts on Monday morning. Met up with Kajo Zboril, who will co-present with me, and Chuck Hirt and Paul Cromwell - the Team Leaders of ECON. Kajo and Chuck drove in - started at 4:30 AM!

We walked around a bit - see photos - and had supper and debriefed the meetings that have happened since we last spoke - Me and Marcy Kaptur and Amb. Sedgewick (US to Slovakia)in DC and Chuck and Kajo and Amb Sedgewick (in Bratislava) and Chuck and Kajo and Slovakia staff of Open Society Foundations; and so on. Lots of possibilities!

Then got down to serious prep. Kajo and I went through two day training plan. He'll co-lead, so we were careful to make space for each of us to put our own stamp on the training. Maybe I'll share it when we're done (if it works!)

From today's train trip from Warsaw to here - I think I'll collect pictures of the spires - the various designs of the tops of churches - it's a fascinating study of culture, architecture, politics, planning....see the St. Jakub Cathedral picture attached, for a start.

More soon - let me hear from you!

Landed!

Up for 36 hours, asleep for three, out to wonderful Russian style restauurant with Warsaw friends. Random thoughts:

Jet lag makes me stupid. Lights in the room wouldn't turn on when I awaoke at 4:45 pm to Warsaw foggy drizzly full-on darkness. I stumbled around with my camping headlamp on, cleaning up to go out...and at the desk they told me there's a slot inside the door where you put your room "key" card that powers the lights. I asked Kasia - Director of the Associaltion of Local Leaders, the national government accountability group that's hosting and the Poland partner in ECON - I asked her to watch me carefully so I don't walk in front of a tram. I hope a night's sleep helps.

These young women - and one young man - who I ate with were key organizers of last February's visit, they're still at it, determined and creative young people. How can I NOT want to help!

Two kinds of herring, two kinds of pierogi, potato blinis with red caviar, lordy lordy can these people cook!

Poland public life is dominated by the story of the catastrophic loss of most of the top officials last year, and the story of why, how, what could have been done, Russia's fault in it, etc etc. It's like a sore tooth they can't stop touching. We have no idea how powerful that was and is.

More soon. Now, to sleep, I hope!

Setting Off

Last day in the Needmor office. Getting packed, getting Nedmor work done - just signed $750,000 in grant checks! Thoughts as I set off:

First, what do I want to learn this time? Certainly I want to test my training skills further - I loved that part last year, and this year's main task is training trainers, so that's even more intense. Next, the whole question of adapting organizing to local political and cultural contexts. We'll have teams from nine countries at this event: Bosnia, France, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine (plus me from the US). Each has its own political context - in some, the legacy of postwar parliamentary democracy and labor-based leftist politics and Green Party activism puts community organizing in a set of boxes that they'll have to deal very carefully with. In others, the legacy of Soviet domination and regimented public life means the skills of participation are almost non-existent - the very idea of participation is a strange one. How much flexibility in "our way" of doing organizing is right; how much are the bones, the core principles, the basic steps immutably and fundadmentally important? We'll see.

This year will be different in some key ways. First, I'm by myself - Lindsay traveled so well with me last time - at the end of a training day she'd join us for dinner, we'd recount the highs and lows, she'd tell of her travels to museums and galleries and various sites. She's traveling to warmer US climes with her sister this time, so that'll be different.

On the other hand, I know the Europeans so much better. Many folks at this meeting will have been through the workshops last year. I've stayed in touch with the leadership of ECON, talked and schemed and tried to help them buld awareness here of what they've got. Paul Cromwell and Kajo Zboril visited, along with Nicoleta Chirita last year to attend the Mott gathering and visit NY and DC and I went along. Chuck Hirt and Mate Varga from Hungary visited just last month, and we met up with Cris Doby, they stayed with us in Toledo and we got lots of scheming time. So these aren't all strangers to me, like last year. And the places will be a bit familiar. I've visited the three main venues already - Szczecin, Katowice and Warsaw. I've got favorite restaurants, favorite walking spots and places I wabnted to see but didn't get to, so that will be a different feeling.

So I'll take pictures, try to reflect here on the blog and mostly I'll try to raise some hell and deepen these wonderful relationships and have fun while I learn. Let me know your reactions, ideas and questions. We'll have fun together!

(I'm asttaching a couple of pictures of the ECON visits to the US this year.)

Here we go again!

So I'm off to Poland next week - flying January 13 and 14th. Plan is to to Training of Trainers for the European Community Organizing Network - ECON - then visit a couple of local groups around Poland, then a couple of free days i Warsaw and back home on the 28th. I hope you, my loyal Blog Folowers, are still out there, and that I can still remember how this works. More soon!