important things!

[Margaret Kearney]

hey all, 

hope everyone's school year is off to a good start.  just a few things about SOS as a whole that i wanted to check in about:

1.  august gathering! sounds like things went pretty well!  there were a few documents to which Ruby's asked us to add our input.  The forwarded email below should link to them, as well as provide some explanation as to what that's all about.

2.  SOS national- the national grand aspirations team is looking for new people to join in the coming year.  if you love conference calls and changing the world, i urge you to sign up!  the application (though don't be scared off by the word "application"!! noooo pressure. i swear.) is here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dGsxdlF2LWVuNDByOHBoNWpxSnJVRnc6MA#gid=0  

3.  Support another young SOS group!  Though a somewhat young program, the Fayetteville, Arkansas Summer of Solutions group is already up for some big grant money.  Vote for them 3 times here, and voting ends monday so do it soon!: http://northamericanfund.350.org/projects/SummerofSolutions.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ruby Levine <ruby....@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 10:47 AM
Subject: PLEASE RESPOND: How you can plug into the Grand Aspirations August Gathering even though you weren't there!
To: Erika Zarowin <er...@urbandefenseproject.org>, tiffany...@gmail.com, jnb...@unca.edu, cour...@sustainableheatingvt.org, tbta...@hotmail.com, Peter Roquemore <peter.r...@gmail.com>, alena...@gmail.com, margaret...@gmail.com, kief...@carleton.edu, zach....@gmail.com
Cc: Matt Kazinka <mkaz...@gmail.com>, Ryan Bancroft <rpban...@gmail.com>, Amanda Bancroft <amandab...@gmail.com>


Hi Summer of Solutions pals!

Even though you weren't able to attend the Grand Aspirations August Gathering this past week in Arkansas, we still want to get you involved with what happened there! (Big thanks to Erika from Cleveland and Lena from Iowa City who Skyped in for the presentations and to Tom from Burlington and JC from Asheville who sent in materials for us to share.) I've collected all the notes, documents, and presentation materials that we received into one Google Folder that you are now all shared on (I hope -- let me know if you can't access these things). Most of this is just background information for people who are particularly interested in catching up on what happened, but there are a few documents that represent content we generated as a group. I'm emailing you to make sure the experiences of your program get captured in these documents. The two most important are:

1. The "Gallery Walk" of what we did in our programs. This was an activity we did on Sunday evening where programs were invited to share how their programs were set up and what they did during the summer. Since this was originally a written activity wherein each program represented itself, it's really straightforward for you all to add in your experiences! We had about 30 minutes for this section at the event, but there were issues of space at the flip-chart pages to write on that you won't have AND many programs finished early, so consider 30 minutes to be the maximum amount of time this should take.
2. Elements of a successful program. In this session, we wrote up the things about how our programs were set up that made them work well, things that we wished we'd done, and things that just didn't work. There's a clear outline of the color-coding system at the top of the document, but let me know if you're unable to use this system due to color-blindness and we'll work something else out. When we did this session, we started forgetting to write down where different comments came from, but when you add more elements that made your program work or if you want to add agreement to something someone else said, please write down which program you're coming from.
• During the Gathering, we decided that some body within the organization will be drawing on these materials to design a set of guidelines that we will ask programs to hold themselves accountable to. Having more and more data about what worked and what didn't will allow us to make better guidelines for programs, so please take some time to do this.
• I have a hard time assessing how long this will take an individual program, since we did all the groups at once, but it took about an hour to generate the list that you see in the document.
3. I don't have this for you yet, but Timothy DenHerder-Thomas and I are working on creating a "selection process" for people who are interested in joining on to national teams (like media, resource generation, program support, etc) for the fall. I will be sending you the form to register your interest in those teams that will allow us to put you on the team that is the best fit.

Please let me know if you have any questions about any of this! I will be calling all of you soon to check in about this email. I won't have internet access from a few hours from now until Monday, so I may be slightly slower than usual in responding. Call me at 802-272-4140 if you have any urgent questions.

Ruby Levine
August Gathering Working Group
Program Leader, Twin Cities Summer of Solutions

--
Margaret Kearney
margaret...@gmail.com