First workshop!

Twenty four leaders from an organizing project in a giant housing complex in the town of Zvolen. Started with magnificent pizza at the restaurant owned by one of the leaders and his wife, who is the organizer there - Nano and Sanja Nikolov, who came here from Croatia and are passionate, open hearted, enthusiastic and totally committed. This sprawling "neighborhood" of 12,000 families is a relic of the "bad old days" - the socialist times, the Soviet era - they built towers with very little attention to common space, green space or community. They've been privatised, so each building has an association and they chose a management company so there are a jumble of landlords to deal with. The underlying land belongs to different people altogether - getting anything done is ten times more complex than it needs to be. They've won some stuff already - I walked on the Sidewalk of Victory, which they got rebuilt by protest and demand. I presented on three questions: Apathy (how do we get folks involved) Power (how do we get some, how much do we have) and Building an Organization. More on this later, perhaps, but it went well, I was able to cheer them up (We only have 40 people! But that's great!) and invented a new metaphor for building an organization (The issues and campaigns are like a pizza, the organization is the restaurant). Deighted to have half the green book translated into Slovak.

I presented in English, of course, and was translated by the organizer, Kajo Zboril. He was great, fast and very good on the organiing nuance. He was a great sport, too -I told the story of how, when I complained to my first organizing mentor that the people were lazy and apathetic and didn't want to be organized, he said NEVER blame the people! It's YOUR job to figure out how to motivate them!" When I tell the story, I bang my hand on the table, right after NEVER! and I asked Kajo to include the BANG in his translation, which he did, with feeling!

Pictures later, stories coming - I fried the power adaptor, so the laptop is out of service.

Lindsay's a great hit, too - her winning way with people, her curiosity and openness and her experience in politics, community bulding and organizing.

Next - three workshops in Poland. Onward!