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So you want to make a difference: 7 Strategies for community organizers

June 3, 2010 in Blog, Community, art and ideas | No comments

I’ve seen it again and again, and despite knowing better, I’ve fallen victim to it myself more times than I care to admit.  Working as a community organizer –  in whatever field, paid or volunteer – vision, dreams, and ambitions almost always outstrip resources and abilities.  After years martyring themselves over small victories and large losses, some burn out, some break down, and some leave in frustration and bitterness.  Even worse, some stay in frustration and bitterness, angry, exhausted, and negative, pulling the organization down with them.  It’s a nasty thing to do to yourself, and a bad way to treat a good dream.

What I consider the greater crime, however, is the culture of wear-down that perpetuates this cycle.  How many terrific, smart, passionate people get so worn down by the demands, expectations, disappointments, losses, and low-income of a career in the community and non-profit sector that we lose them after a few years, with a net loss to the community of invaluable experience, momentum, and expertise?  As people interested in the health and vibrancy of our community, it’s poor behaviour to demand that our volunteers and employees sacrifice their own to the cause.

Whenever I hear the adjective “tireless” applied to a community worker, hear jovial references to their round-the-clock presence at the office, see their time and work undervalued, I worry about the future of the organization they work for.  It’s a process of attrition, a death by a thousand cuts.  The fall may be slow, but it’s inevitable.

A community’s greatest asset is its skilled workers; protect yourself, and the important work you do, by avoiding the pitfalls.

I’ve given this a lot of thought, having been involved in the community sector a long time, and often fallen into the traps described above.  As paid staff, volunteer, and Board member, I’ve both asked too much and been asked too much.  There’s not a mistake on this list I haven’t made myself, sometimes over and again.  So, as much to remind myself as to educate anyone else, here are seven strategies for making a positive difference in both your own life, and that of the community! Read the rest of this entry »

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The internet ruins everything that needs to be ruined.

March 11, 2010 in Blog, Community, art and ideas | No comments

Conan O'BrienI’ve always been a fan of Conan O’Brien, but never really watched his tv show; generally I’m up to other things at 11:30 or later.  I watch the good bits online, because I am one of those internet people who are ruining everything.  But I took note of the news about the Tonight Show controversy with interest; I saw it as ringside seats on the big bout between old media and new; the online voice came out strongly in support of Conan, and Jay Leno, a representative of the old guard in essentially every way, came out looking like a villain. But he got his show back, and Conan rode out of NBC with his dignity, his talent, and the hearts of everyone under 40.

So it’s not news that the big guys, be they record labels or tv stations or newspapers or media conglomerates, have lost their game and can’t seem to get it back.  Talking to an acquaintance who works on the fringes of a major record label, I hear the same worn-out melodrama – piracy is ruining everything.  I was surprised that anyone still thinks so; certainly, none of the musicians I’ve spoken to seem to be worrying about piracy – in fact, most of the smart ones are giving songs away for free.  The more I look around, the more I see the big labels and the media that serves them as impediments to success, unless the planets align and you happen to be one of the slender minority of mega-stars that they’re willing to push.

That model – a few large corporations controlling the major distribution outlets for all culture – is fairly recent.  And like any system that relies on too little diversity, it’s hugely vulnerable as the world around it shifts and develops.  Just as nature develops new and nasty diseases to attack factory farms, human technology develops to attack factory culture.  Old media have managed to keep a stranglehold on the mainstream through a number of new technologies, but perhaps (a girl can dream) their slow-moving monoliths are no match for the flexibility and adaptability of the internet.   Read the rest of this entry »

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Defenders of the great white north.

February 19, 2010 in Blog, Sort-of funny, art and ideas | 3 comments

I have a theory.

Whiskey, neatOkay, I have a lot of theories, and I try the patience of my long-suffering friends by expounding on them, often over whiskey (neat), sometimes while one or another of those long-suffering friends keeps me from plunging sideways into a bonfire or through a coffee table.  Even when generously marinated in Ireland’s finest, I exhibit perspicacity and blarney than amuses more often than it angers.  At least, that’s how I choose to  remember it in the clear light of day.  It is the only explanation for my continued rescue from the fate that awaits those who are unrestrained in both consumption of whiskey and expression of half-baked opinions, though perhaps I should give more credit to the kind natures and loving hearts of my friends.

But this is one pet theory I’ve cherished for almost a decade, and I think it’s ready for the slightly more public forum of the world wide web.  I’m not sure the world – and, in particular, Canadians – are ready for this; it’s controversial, it’s going to inflame strong opinions and, no doubt, passionate debate.  So, before I go on, I implore you to keep it civil in the comments.

My friends in the United States may not be aware of this, but in Canada, ‘north’ is a place the is completely subject to interpretation.  To some people, mostly Torontonians, I live in the north, even though I’m actually more eastish in relation to them.  To me, Sudbury and North Bay is the real, no-foolin’ north (it even says so in the name), and Thunder Bay has true northiness.  But what I rarely stop to consider (and I think my southern Ontario neighbours are with me on this one), is that most of Canada is north of all of the places I’ve named, and that actually none of them are even north of the 49th parallel.  Kapuskasing mocks the northiness of Thunder Bay, and Nunvavut sits secure in the knowledge of being the northest of us all.

So, to simplify; people think we’re all north in Canada, we think we’re all north, and everyone north of each of us thinks everyone south of them is the southiest.  Add to that the idea that being a southern Canadian is like having cooties forever, and then being a southern Ontarian is like cooties to the power of infinity.  We’re lame.  We’re not aware of how lame we are, but everyone else in Canada knows it like they know where you get a double-double and where you buy a two-four. Read the rest of this entry »

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Balance and Recovery

January 23, 2010 in Blog, Current Projects, Ideas, art and ideas | 7 comments

Six years ago, give or take, I was diagnosed with Clinical Depression.  Having spent years feeling a kind of hopeless dull normal, it was a relief to hear from a medical professional that it wasn’t just me; it wasn’t just that I’m weaker than everyone else, or less capable of taking the unbearable awfulness of my life, as I’d suspected.  The chemicals in my brain were imbalanced.  This could be fixed.

I think those first few years I must have been a bit weird; assigned a drug with a name that implied it would work (Effexor – now with even more effex!), I found I’d traded one kind of miserable for another, though it was a more bearable misery.  I wished for a switch to flip, a miracle, a fixer.  I wished (oh, I still do) that they could find my depression and cut it out where it lies. We tried different drugs, different doses, and eventually I found that what really helped was Omega 3-6-9 capsules and exercise, and everything improved dramatically after that.

But lingering at the back of my mind is the fear that I’ll slip, or that the Omega’s effects will wear off and I’ll be back where I started or worse.  I’ve read the literature; Clinical Depression is theorized to essentially scar your brain, making it easy to fall back into the chasm you’ve hauled yourself out of.  I don’t mind being sad sometimes, but that unvarying sameness of depression isn’t sadness.  It’s hard to describe, but it’s not the same as being sad.  I look back at it with a horror that motivates me now to ensure I never go back there. Read the rest of this entry »

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New Moon – How to Deal With It

November 25, 2009 in Blog, Community, Movie Reviews, art and ideas | 5 comments

So last Friday afternoon my sisters and I went to see the newest film in the Twilight saga, New Moon.  Why would a 32-year-old woman and her adult sisters would go see this movie?   There are three reasons:

pattinson1.  Twilight is a huge cultural phenomenon, and to avoid seeing this movie is to ignore the obsession of an entire generation.  Also, years of jokes and parodies which you won’t get because you skipped it.

2.  These movies are a laugh riot.  I mean, unintentional, but they’re hilarious.  Much more funny than most comedies.

3.  Robert Pattinson is pretty hot.

So New Moon.

I was going to write a review and be hilarious at the expense of this movie, but you’ll probably see it, and the humour implicit in Italian vampires who don’t wear any socks and teenage werewolves who never wear shirts will be clear to you.  Instead I’m going to talk directly to the parents of the teens and pre-teens who are going to see this film.

Firstly, don’t fool yourself: this series is not about abstinence.  It’s about sex.  Lots of it.  In the near future.  The whole series is designed to get the readers wound up, essentially, into a dreamy, inexperienced sexual frenzy.  That’s how they sell merchandise.  It’s not rocket science.

There’s probably no way you can avoid having your kid see any of the movies from this series unless you’re raising a socially maladjusted freak.  By hook or by crook, even if you forbid your kid from seeing this film, they’ll find a way.  When they’re older they will probably also get into your liquor cabinet.  So don’t go through all the drama of making these films or books forbidden fruit; you’ve got bigger fish to fry.  Take them to see it.  It’s really not worth fighting about.

But when the film is done, by god, sit them down and have a conversation. Read the rest of this entry »

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In Praise of Generalists.

October 23, 2009 in Blog, Community, TV, art and ideas | 2 comments

Okay, yes:  I’ve been watching a lot of TV lately.  I used to watch a lot of movies, but I feel like there’s not a lot of interesting stuff happening there and I wonder if culturally we need a little break from the 90-120 minute format for storytelling.  So I’ve been watching TV shows, where the plot arc is long and filled with potential for character development.  Character development is just about the only thing I’m interested in watching these days.  Well, okay, character development and shirtless men.  I have facets.

I was a kid in the 80s, when TV (and fashion) was awful.  Characters had one dimension; plots were hackneyed and predictable.  Characters didn’t develop, and the end of an episode was like a magic reset button; nothing changed, everything went back to how it had been at the beginning of the episode.  How it had always been.

Online, I’ve noticed that people of my generation seem to be doing this to themselves: casting one facet of their personality in the role of The Interesting Thing About me so they can blog about it and (eventually, I assume it’s hoped) get a book deal or a television show of their very own.  Tech blogs, political blogs, movie blogs, mommy blogs – if you can name it, there’s someone out there blogging about it to the exclusion of all else.  It draws an audience of like-minded people, and soon you get a marvelous infinite recursion*, where the only change is that opinions get more extreme, entrenched and isolated from the rest of the world. Read the rest of this entry »

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