" Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
-Mark Twain
april 10, 9am-4pm
so today we didn't do anything besides learn about our amazing trip to amsterdam!! ill write about everything we do in the amazing city when i get back, but heres a brief summary of what we plan on doing there!
bicycles.anne frank house.greenpeace international. greenpeace netherlands. the sirius. red light district. oceans briefings. gmos briefings. netherlands warehouse. hostels. europe. canals. tulips. van gogh museum.
!!!!!
Friday, April 10, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
introducing your new campus coordinator!
april 9th, 2009, 10am-4pm
today was our last day of the incredibly helpful and interesting student week. we started our day by hearing from ethan who is an organizer for the chesapeake climate network and he told us his story of how he got involved with organizing and what brought him to the ccn. it really seems that the bottom line of all organizers is the wanting to be apart of something bigger than yourself, of having that passion to help others. its nice to see that because that is a quality i know i possess. he was really inspirational because he spoke from the heart and didn't bore us with all the different tactics and strategies you can use on campus...he instead spoke out of the means of motivation. the climate crisis now. our reps aren't denying it, our president won on an environmental platform, and the time is now. after we did more research on our campaign and stressed the importance of time-lining your campaign. this is something i really see as helpful because i never would usually think to make a time line for a campaign, i would just start. but i really understand the importance of goals and timelines now and i think thats going to help me become a successful organizer. i then had my interview with carling to see if i would become a campus coordinator for greenpeace at ucf and i was offered the position! i was really happy because i really think i have the passion and skills to make change happen at ucf. i am going to try to eliminate kc products from our bookstores, since they are no longer being purchased by our school. then i will try to pressure suzanne kosmas, the house rep for ucf to become a climate champion. we wrapped up our day by learning about effective teams and how to work with sga and your campus groups, which is really important because sga should definitely be someone you want on your side. we wrapped up with success stories from the campus coordinators to pump us all up for making change on our campus!
3 days till amsterdam :)
today was our last day of the incredibly helpful and interesting student week. we started our day by hearing from ethan who is an organizer for the chesapeake climate network and he told us his story of how he got involved with organizing and what brought him to the ccn. it really seems that the bottom line of all organizers is the wanting to be apart of something bigger than yourself, of having that passion to help others. its nice to see that because that is a quality i know i possess. he was really inspirational because he spoke from the heart and didn't bore us with all the different tactics and strategies you can use on campus...he instead spoke out of the means of motivation. the climate crisis now. our reps aren't denying it, our president won on an environmental platform, and the time is now. after we did more research on our campaign and stressed the importance of time-lining your campaign. this is something i really see as helpful because i never would usually think to make a time line for a campaign, i would just start. but i really understand the importance of goals and timelines now and i think thats going to help me become a successful organizer. i then had my interview with carling to see if i would become a campus coordinator for greenpeace at ucf and i was offered the position! i was really happy because i really think i have the passion and skills to make change happen at ucf. i am going to try to eliminate kc products from our bookstores, since they are no longer being purchased by our school. then i will try to pressure suzanne kosmas, the house rep for ucf to become a climate champion. we wrapped up our day by learning about effective teams and how to work with sga and your campus groups, which is really important because sga should definitely be someone you want on your side. we wrapped up with success stories from the campus coordinators to pump us all up for making change on our campus!
3 days till amsterdam :)
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
so what brand are you looking for? KLEENEX.
april 8th, 10am-5pm
five days till amsterdam...unbelievable. so our day began with scott paul, who is the head of the forests department and he gave us a brief history of forests and of course, the kleercut campaign. its crazy how much deforestation is making an impact on our world and we really need to re-consider the way we do logging. i wish there could be some kind of political policy on this because i think our government truly needs to act up. of course these corporations aren't going to act responsibly if they don't have to...but if the gov't tells them they need to log fairly, they would. anyways, it really motivated me to get more involved with the kleercut campaign and be really careful where i buy my products from. greenpeace is coming out with a new application for phones that will have things like tissue and paper towel guide on it, its SO COOL how technology can help win campaigns. anyways, we then used our time until lunch to do more research on our campus campaigns and also power map our targets. mine is suzanne kosmas because she is the rep for ucf and we want her to be a champion for global warming! we also had a training by gabriel who just gave us a more detailed briefing on environmental ngos which was exciting because learning more about other non profits and ngos was one of my goals of the semester. we finished our day by learning about advanced facilitation. its so important to know how to be a good facilitator if you want to work on campaigns because you need to know how to lead and empower people. i think i'm starting to finally feel ready to take on that challenge, which is why i'm applying to be a campus coordinator. my interview is tomorrow with carling, hopefully it goes well!
five days till amsterdam...unbelievable. so our day began with scott paul, who is the head of the forests department and he gave us a brief history of forests and of course, the kleercut campaign. its crazy how much deforestation is making an impact on our world and we really need to re-consider the way we do logging. i wish there could be some kind of political policy on this because i think our government truly needs to act up. of course these corporations aren't going to act responsibly if they don't have to...but if the gov't tells them they need to log fairly, they would. anyways, it really motivated me to get more involved with the kleercut campaign and be really careful where i buy my products from. greenpeace is coming out with a new application for phones that will have things like tissue and paper towel guide on it, its SO COOL how technology can help win campaigns. anyways, we then used our time until lunch to do more research on our campus campaigns and also power map our targets. mine is suzanne kosmas because she is the rep for ucf and we want her to be a champion for global warming! we also had a training by gabriel who just gave us a more detailed briefing on environmental ngos which was exciting because learning more about other non profits and ngos was one of my goals of the semester. we finished our day by learning about advanced facilitation. its so important to know how to be a good facilitator if you want to work on campaigns because you need to know how to lead and empower people. i think i'm starting to finally feel ready to take on that challenge, which is why i'm applying to be a campus coordinator. my interview is tomorrow with carling, hopefully it goes well!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
power to the youth!
april 7th 11am-5pm
so today was a pretty interesting day, we learned a lot from carling who is one of the people that works with the student network. we started our day by going more so in detail about what the student network is, what it does and who its comprised us. it was really interesting because its so important to understand the political power that the youth holds. i mean without the youth, obama would not be our president! so its really OUR TIME to stand up for our future, and we want environmental and social justice. so basically the student network plugs all gp students into a big system and lets them know how they can get involved. and the campus coordinators make things happen at their schools--they really are the leaders of the whole system. they're currently working on the global warming campaign (better known as project hot seat) in which they are pressuring congress to become climate champions and fight for climate legislation. they also are working on kleercut, making sure Kimberly clark projects are taken off their campuses so we take a stance against KC's horrible practice of clear-cutting. sixteen campuses have already signed on, including ucf. so i think i'm going to apply to be a campus coordinator and focus on global warming, having suzanne kosmas, whos our rep who is also liberal, stand up for the climate. we spent the rest of our day just planning on campus campaigns and i only basically decided that i will try to start a project hot seat campaign at school. i think ill be able to do it, we'll see what happens!
so today was a pretty interesting day, we learned a lot from carling who is one of the people that works with the student network. we started our day by going more so in detail about what the student network is, what it does and who its comprised us. it was really interesting because its so important to understand the political power that the youth holds. i mean without the youth, obama would not be our president! so its really OUR TIME to stand up for our future, and we want environmental and social justice. so basically the student network plugs all gp students into a big system and lets them know how they can get involved. and the campus coordinators make things happen at their schools--they really are the leaders of the whole system. they're currently working on the global warming campaign (better known as project hot seat) in which they are pressuring congress to become climate champions and fight for climate legislation. they also are working on kleercut, making sure Kimberly clark projects are taken off their campuses so we take a stance against KC's horrible practice of clear-cutting. sixteen campuses have already signed on, including ucf. so i think i'm going to apply to be a campus coordinator and focus on global warming, having suzanne kosmas, whos our rep who is also liberal, stand up for the climate. we spent the rest of our day just planning on campus campaigns and i only basically decided that i will try to start a project hot seat campaign at school. i think ill be able to do it, we'll see what happens!
Monday, April 6, 2009
de-brief to re-brief.
monday, april 6th 11am-5pm
so today was our debrief for our vermont yankee campaign. it was a little difficult since we had two groups and uvm was so incredibly successful, and middlebury was still a little bummed out, but i still learned a lot. we first went over all of our best moments and biggest lessons learned. my best moment was when i was petitioning in front of the rolling sunlight, it was so much fun and we generated so many petitions so it was just an overall great day. my biggest lesson was the importance of communication..when you have a group of 11 leaders, you need to constantly communicate your goals, expectations, actuals, how you're feeling, your ideas, etc. so i really saw how lack-of communication can mess with your group dynamics and i'm glad i experienced that. we also discussed what we learned, our experiences, and what we plan on bringing back to campus. i think my biggest lessons were the importance of positive feedback, smart goals, and being an effective group member. it was a really good debrief and really just brought everyone back on track for the next three weeks. after this we had two training's from gabriel, one on the history of campus organizing and the other on the corporate campus. it was SO COOL to see how much campus organizing has changed, stayed the same, and been so influential in the many years. it was also a really cool training to learn about how much corporations and campuses are intertwined and how you can make that work on your campus.
it was an overall great day and ONE WEEK UNTIL AMSTERDAM!!
so today was our debrief for our vermont yankee campaign. it was a little difficult since we had two groups and uvm was so incredibly successful, and middlebury was still a little bummed out, but i still learned a lot. we first went over all of our best moments and biggest lessons learned. my best moment was when i was petitioning in front of the rolling sunlight, it was so much fun and we generated so many petitions so it was just an overall great day. my biggest lesson was the importance of communication..when you have a group of 11 leaders, you need to constantly communicate your goals, expectations, actuals, how you're feeling, your ideas, etc. so i really saw how lack-of communication can mess with your group dynamics and i'm glad i experienced that. we also discussed what we learned, our experiences, and what we plan on bringing back to campus. i think my biggest lessons were the importance of positive feedback, smart goals, and being an effective group member. it was a really good debrief and really just brought everyone back on track for the next three weeks. after this we had two training's from gabriel, one on the history of campus organizing and the other on the corporate campus. it was SO COOL to see how much campus organizing has changed, stayed the same, and been so influential in the many years. it was also a really cool training to learn about how much corporations and campuses are intertwined and how you can make that work on your campus.
it was an overall great day and ONE WEEK UNTIL AMSTERDAM!!
Saturday, April 4, 2009
only 3 more weeks.
so its the end of our second campaign, and i really wanted to just reflect on what has happened in the past few months. first of all, i cannot believe the got is coming to an end. the thought of that scares me and excites me more than anything. without a doubt i have never been so sleep deprived but i have also never been more empowered in my life. this program has allowed me to finally begin to believe in myself. it has been nothing close to easy but has been one of the greatest challenges of my life and i feel so lucky to have been apart of this.
as far as personal growth, i know i have become such a better person in a very short amount of time. i think i have allowed myself to really begin to love again. i say the word love a lot but sometimes you get so wrapped up in life that you forget what it really means. i have allowed myself to really open up because i was out here on my own and i really didn't have much choice. it has also really been a scary experience because i have presented myself as 100% me. life is way too short to have personal issues hold you back. this is me, love it or leave it. i am done holding back for others. it is a very interesting experience to come a new place confused and alone and leave more confident within yourself then ever before. i have a very strong feeling that is is going to cause some very serious fall outs in my life, but that is okay. i know that i have a very strong base and foundation for my life and as long as i have my family (and a few very good friends) that is all i really need.
as far as life and career goals, this has been a whirlwind. working with greenpeace has hands down been one of the best experiences i will ever have in my life. to work in an organization this well known, this well respected, and this successful is something you could never explain. furthermore, it truly empowers you to keep going to work everyday. it is also great to be nearing the end of my got experience because i have such bigger things ahead of me, i just know it. i hope that i can work in non profits down in orlando and even more hopeful is land a job once i graduate in only one year. i have one, small, tiny year left until i become a real adult..how scary is that. but got allowed me to transition from student into a working woman every smoothly. there is so much more i have to learn but i know that i have this great base within greenpeace that i plan on fully utilizing.
i am more scared for going back to school then i was to leave. i wasn't unhappy at school by any means, i had great friends, relatively interesting classes and definitely have my place within ucf. but that wasn't enough and this experience has taught me more than i ever could have learned at ucf. i am still no where near a perfect activist, and i may be able to run a phonebank but i still don't feel ready enough to run a campaign on my own. but that will definitely happen with time.
until then, i am ready to bust out these next three weeks with my fullest heart. thankfully i really feel like i put my whole heart into got which is why i think i got so much out of it. but i need to spend this weekend truly getting my mind back in the game, as these next few weeks are going to be even more difficult than before. but i know i am ready to face this challenges and i know i have dealt with ones much more difficult before. i hope that i am able to stabilize myself again this summer to fully kick some butt on the ucf campus before i go off to the real world. i'm sure i will keep everyone posted, as i always do.
with love.
as far as personal growth, i know i have become such a better person in a very short amount of time. i think i have allowed myself to really begin to love again. i say the word love a lot but sometimes you get so wrapped up in life that you forget what it really means. i have allowed myself to really open up because i was out here on my own and i really didn't have much choice. it has also really been a scary experience because i have presented myself as 100% me. life is way too short to have personal issues hold you back. this is me, love it or leave it. i am done holding back for others. it is a very interesting experience to come a new place confused and alone and leave more confident within yourself then ever before. i have a very strong feeling that is is going to cause some very serious fall outs in my life, but that is okay. i know that i have a very strong base and foundation for my life and as long as i have my family (and a few very good friends) that is all i really need.
as far as life and career goals, this has been a whirlwind. working with greenpeace has hands down been one of the best experiences i will ever have in my life. to work in an organization this well known, this well respected, and this successful is something you could never explain. furthermore, it truly empowers you to keep going to work everyday. it is also great to be nearing the end of my got experience because i have such bigger things ahead of me, i just know it. i hope that i can work in non profits down in orlando and even more hopeful is land a job once i graduate in only one year. i have one, small, tiny year left until i become a real adult..how scary is that. but got allowed me to transition from student into a working woman every smoothly. there is so much more i have to learn but i know that i have this great base within greenpeace that i plan on fully utilizing.
i am more scared for going back to school then i was to leave. i wasn't unhappy at school by any means, i had great friends, relatively interesting classes and definitely have my place within ucf. but that wasn't enough and this experience has taught me more than i ever could have learned at ucf. i am still no where near a perfect activist, and i may be able to run a phonebank but i still don't feel ready enough to run a campaign on my own. but that will definitely happen with time.
until then, i am ready to bust out these next three weeks with my fullest heart. thankfully i really feel like i put my whole heart into got which is why i think i got so much out of it. but i need to spend this weekend truly getting my mind back in the game, as these next few weeks are going to be even more difficult than before. but i know i am ready to face this challenges and i know i have dealt with ones much more difficult before. i hope that i am able to stabilize myself again this summer to fully kick some butt on the ucf campus before i go off to the real world. i'm sure i will keep everyone posted, as i always do.
with love.
vermont is wonderful.
monday, march 30th, 9am-9pm
so today was our first day on uvms campus! we were really excited to finally get out on our campus and really get into our campaign. its really cool because one of the students in our program actually goes to university of vermont which is making our campus go super smooth because we know the set up of the school etc. so we started with a usual morning meeting and with our matrix set up we know that we had from 11-3 to work and everyone was supposed to do at least 2 hours of petitioning work. so we set out early in the day and COMPLETELY exceeded our goals. our overall goals for campus was 300 petitions and within one day we got 406 total petitions. so clearly uvm was a very easy campus to work with so that was great. we then used our night to split up half doing door-to-door and the other half phonebanking our petitions. door-to-door went well and i enjoyed it because a lot of people in vermont are just really happy and easy going so they were just great. our goals was 8 postcards each and i was able to get 15 in the time we used to d2d so that was SUPER exciting. i was very happy and proud of myself and my group!
tuesday march 31st, 9am-9pm
we started our day very much the same, our usaul morning meeting to get everyone on the same page. i actually didn't do much petitioning this day, instead the majority of the group did but i went down to town to ask the local businesses for some more donations for our kick off party and also do some flyering as well. so that was very successful because again people in vermont just are really supportive of greenpeace's work. we then closed at uvm's campus getting about 500+petitions and actually went to do a mini-action (greenpeace style, of course). turns out uvms sga was thinking supporting a resolution that would make uvm as a school support the yankee and we did not want that to happen. so we rallied up about 20 something kids and walked into the open forum for sga with our "no nukes" banner. two students (1 from our got and then 1 got graduate that is also a uvm student) spoke up and explained our disapproval of supporting the yankee. after we finished a state rep was at the meeting as well and supported us saying that the school should not support the yankee and listed all the valued points. it was really efficient and i was really proud.
wednesday april 1st 11am-9pm
so today we actually went over to middlebury to help them with last minute outreach since they had their kickoff party that evening. we helped them flyer for a few hours and then had the rolling sunlight crew help us have a small hot chocolate event in the town. the outreach was not very successful because middleburys campus and their town is very, very small and it was frustrating because the middlebury crew was forgetting we were volunteering our time and therefore they must support us. it was a really good learning experience because it helped us formulate ideas for the next day. we then helped them set up for their kickoff party, which was planned very similar to ours. they did not have a very good turn out, about 6 people or so actually came and they were pretty bummed out. its so hard when you're working on such a small campus and it can be very frustrating but you can never let it get you down.
thursday april 2nd, 9am-10pm
today was the day of all of our events! so we started off by setting up the rolling sunlight actually on campus, we were thankfully able to get a parking spot in the middle of campus. it worked SO WELL. we had music and the rolling sunlight is an automatic attention getter and we were doing photo petitions and we generated probably about 300 or so. it was great because we were doing photo petitions, signed petitions, and flyering for our kickoff event. and the weather was perfect, abut 60 and sunny and i don't think we could have asked for a better day. so then we took a little break at 2 and headed over to one of the students parents house for dinner which let us chill out a little before the kickoff, which was definitely needed. we did about an hour of prep, just making sure everything was in place and then the event began at 7. it went AMAZING. our goal was 25 people and we had just about under 100 guests, not including any members from the got. we were SHOCKED and couldn't have been more proud. we had 4 speakers, one professor from the univ (teaches ecological economics), ben walsh (canvass director of VPIRG, who we worked with), chris williams (leader from citizens awareness network) and one last added on speaker. we started with our small intro from the student of uvm and the got member which was a great way to add context to the situation, then went into our 4 speakers and then q&a. after that we had break out sessions, which was recruitment (for grassroots campaigns), writing letters to sga, writing letters of the editors, and also planning an earth day event that will happen later this month by uvm with the rolling sunlight. it was AMAAAZINNG. i helped lead the rec workshop with our coordinator and one other students and we had an agenda perfectly planned and i think the attendees got a lot out of it. we also got news that the letters to sga will deintley need to be put to us because an sga senator showed up and said he is going to help us write a counter resolution to support CLEAN energy! the students also set up great plans for the earth day event. i was so proud of all of our hard work and so impressed by uvm students. it was so exciting and we had a well earned celebration after!
friday april 3rd
travel day. i hate the car.
so today was our first day on uvms campus! we were really excited to finally get out on our campus and really get into our campaign. its really cool because one of the students in our program actually goes to university of vermont which is making our campus go super smooth because we know the set up of the school etc. so we started with a usual morning meeting and with our matrix set up we know that we had from 11-3 to work and everyone was supposed to do at least 2 hours of petitioning work. so we set out early in the day and COMPLETELY exceeded our goals. our overall goals for campus was 300 petitions and within one day we got 406 total petitions. so clearly uvm was a very easy campus to work with so that was great. we then used our night to split up half doing door-to-door and the other half phonebanking our petitions. door-to-door went well and i enjoyed it because a lot of people in vermont are just really happy and easy going so they were just great. our goals was 8 postcards each and i was able to get 15 in the time we used to d2d so that was SUPER exciting. i was very happy and proud of myself and my group!
tuesday march 31st, 9am-9pm
we started our day very much the same, our usaul morning meeting to get everyone on the same page. i actually didn't do much petitioning this day, instead the majority of the group did but i went down to town to ask the local businesses for some more donations for our kick off party and also do some flyering as well. so that was very successful because again people in vermont just are really supportive of greenpeace's work. we then closed at uvm's campus getting about 500+petitions and actually went to do a mini-action (greenpeace style, of course). turns out uvms sga was thinking supporting a resolution that would make uvm as a school support the yankee and we did not want that to happen. so we rallied up about 20 something kids and walked into the open forum for sga with our "no nukes" banner. two students (1 from our got and then 1 got graduate that is also a uvm student) spoke up and explained our disapproval of supporting the yankee. after we finished a state rep was at the meeting as well and supported us saying that the school should not support the yankee and listed all the valued points. it was really efficient and i was really proud.
wednesday april 1st 11am-9pm
so today we actually went over to middlebury to help them with last minute outreach since they had their kickoff party that evening. we helped them flyer for a few hours and then had the rolling sunlight crew help us have a small hot chocolate event in the town. the outreach was not very successful because middleburys campus and their town is very, very small and it was frustrating because the middlebury crew was forgetting we were volunteering our time and therefore they must support us. it was a really good learning experience because it helped us formulate ideas for the next day. we then helped them set up for their kickoff party, which was planned very similar to ours. they did not have a very good turn out, about 6 people or so actually came and they were pretty bummed out. its so hard when you're working on such a small campus and it can be very frustrating but you can never let it get you down.
thursday april 2nd, 9am-10pm
today was the day of all of our events! so we started off by setting up the rolling sunlight actually on campus, we were thankfully able to get a parking spot in the middle of campus. it worked SO WELL. we had music and the rolling sunlight is an automatic attention getter and we were doing photo petitions and we generated probably about 300 or so. it was great because we were doing photo petitions, signed petitions, and flyering for our kickoff event. and the weather was perfect, abut 60 and sunny and i don't think we could have asked for a better day. so then we took a little break at 2 and headed over to one of the students parents house for dinner which let us chill out a little before the kickoff, which was definitely needed. we did about an hour of prep, just making sure everything was in place and then the event began at 7. it went AMAZING. our goal was 25 people and we had just about under 100 guests, not including any members from the got. we were SHOCKED and couldn't have been more proud. we had 4 speakers, one professor from the univ (teaches ecological economics), ben walsh (canvass director of VPIRG, who we worked with), chris williams (leader from citizens awareness network) and one last added on speaker. we started with our small intro from the student of uvm and the got member which was a great way to add context to the situation, then went into our 4 speakers and then q&a. after that we had break out sessions, which was recruitment (for grassroots campaigns), writing letters to sga, writing letters of the editors, and also planning an earth day event that will happen later this month by uvm with the rolling sunlight. it was AMAAAZINNG. i helped lead the rec workshop with our coordinator and one other students and we had an agenda perfectly planned and i think the attendees got a lot out of it. we also got news that the letters to sga will deintley need to be put to us because an sga senator showed up and said he is going to help us write a counter resolution to support CLEAN energy! the students also set up great plans for the earth day event. i was so proud of all of our hard work and so impressed by uvm students. it was so exciting and we had a well earned celebration after!
friday april 3rd
travel day. i hate the car.
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