Not that we went into hibernation exactly. I personally have been slacking, taking time for family over the holidays, etc. But the home occupations and events have continued, and a 3rd home facing foreclosure is about to be Occupied.
http://www.occupyminneapolis.mn/...
Yet this weekend retreat was a good idea for getting people like me reactivated. On Saturday, I was pretty much focused on bringing dessert and helping in the kitchen. Judging by the mostly clean plates I got to wash, I think we did well.
more pics and happenings below the squiggle
On Sunday I was more of a participant. Still had enough chores at home that I missed the noon meal but made it just in time for the start of the day's programming, Elements of Building a Healthy Movement presented by Ricardo Levins Morales.
Ricardo was wonderful at using stories to illustrate his points about the dynamics of the struggle for social justice. We learned it's normal and even productive to have some polarities within the movement, the thing is to resolve them to get a forward direction. I heard quite a few things that reminded me of Escaping the Matrix by Richard Moore, such as listening for unmet needs when there is conflict.
Then we used a World Cafe process to discuss different aspects of OccupyMpls in relation to what Ricardo had spoken about. I first chose the group on the health of our General Assembly Process, and it turned out I was the one in the group who had been to the most though it was not many! So I shared some of my varied experiences with GAs and that overall I like it much better than Robert's Rules of Order. The second group I went to was on clarity of message, and that got to be a much broader discussion I won't attempt to describe here. I think these groups generated some good ideas for making OccupyMpls stronger.
During breaks you could grab some more food or buy cool OccuGear. I got a patch for my bike saddlebags :-)
We had some more small group work on methods of social change, visiting our most favorite, 2nd favorite and least favorite. Education/raising awareness was the most popular method, and trying to make government work better was chosen by an overwhelming number as their least favorite! I was with them, and heard many stories like mine, that we are still trying to make it better but disgusted with lack of progress. Others have truly given up on it.
The last part of the program was a chance for the working groups to meet. Since the Food Committee was not meeting, I joined the group that was on networking with WAMM and planning the next retreat (WAMM people were key to getting this retreat going). We hope we can use the same space next time, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers HQ is a lovely. open building with easy parking, even if we did make their restrooms a little more inclusive ;-) Many thanks to them for letting us use it this weekend.