Mildly informative and pleasant story

[Cheryl]

Yesterday morning, while at the Wound Clinic at SF General, the desk
clerk helping me was teasing/taunting a nurse about her coffee
consumption. As the nurse went into her office, the desk clerk told
me, laughing, “she’s been trying to quit coffee for a while”. So,
on my way out I stopped and spoke with the coffee drinker.

First, when I told her I was working to help Lyon-Martin clinic she
said, “that’s a very important place!”

Then when I told her the clinic was still open and about SLM and how
community response had raised $383,000 since late January - her eyes
about popped out of her head and her mouth dropped open. She said
“all for Lyon-Martin?” When she asked “What happened did they just
lose all their funding?” I responded with “Well, there was some
mismanagement at the top”, she sighed and nodded as if she was
familiar with the problem.

When I began to explain that our goal was to raise another $150,000 by
the end of the year and about 30 Days For Health, she immediately
understood the idea and even finished the sentence with “and you get
pledges” (to help you quit). When I suggested she might participate
she wrinkled her nose and said, “I don’t know I’ve only been able to
cut back in the mornings”. After a pause she said, “Can I just send
you a check instead?”

So the good news is:
1) She said she would follow through with a check right now
2) When she went back into her office I head her start telling her
co-workers about LM.
3) The mismanagement answer didn't trigger further question. It
seemed to her an old story. So I didn't have to struggle with
messaging / information on what exact actions took place.

The less good news is that I can see that we’ll have to find a good
way to encourage people to take up a challenge for themselves which
we’ll be depending on to raise funds for LM. Right there on the spot,
I didn’t have a good way of talking about the challenge. Now, hours
later, I realize I should have said more about how she’ll be doing it
with other people, and how they’ll be support and online ck-ins etc.

So the lesson for me is to think about the challenge language more
carefully. She was ready to be supportive of LM and willing to make a
donation, but her own personal challenge was the difficult sell.

[pike on a bike]

Cheryl, I LOVE this! And this sounds like the perfect thing to tackle at... drumroll, please... our next COMMUNICATIONS meeting! Yay! I really am kind of ridiculously overjoyed that we are finally reviving the communications group. The more I reflect on how much we need to do, the more I wish I hadn't let myself de-prioritize it before.

Anyway- onward and upward!

Thanks,

Pike

On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 11:50 AM, gabriel haaland <gabriel...@gmail.com> wrote:

The nurses and health care workers for the city are members of my
union. They are the best.

--
Do you believe that access to health care is a right, not a privilege? Support our local women's and transgender clinic, Lyon-Martin, to ensure that they will be able to provide health care to our community for many years to come. Please visit www.savelyonmartin.org for more info!