Notes from the Denver Wake Up Session Today

So there were a lot of people who couldn't make the wake up session. As well, if anybody wants to know how it went, I'm posting all the stuff we talked about, and what people said. Over all, the day went really well. It was great to put face and real name to some of the display names on here. We were all like "Oh! You're THAT guy! I talked to you just the other day" lol...and we were just meeting each other, but we already knew who a lot of people were. It was cool. Now, I'm gonna put this up here in the format of our schedule, and put in what we talked about. Parts of the schedule won't be here, because it's slightly insignificant, lol...like the welcome and the introductions...although I'll put up the fact that we had everyone also state their FWT user name so we could put face to screen name, lol.

So we read the Code of conduct, which people can read if they go to the main forum page. Brian read it out loud, and we focused on the 7 values(Peace, Responsibility, justice, Engagement, Sustainability, Respect, and Dialog). We all broke up into pairs so we could talk to each other about what those mean to us and how they are connected to street team. Here is some of what people said:
--We need to have as balance of the values
--Remember you are part of a community and don't alienate yourselves from other organizations and people. Be PART of the community.
--Show up to events you sign up for/Follow through(Responsibility)
--Do the right thing and be productive(Also responsibility)
--We started out small, and everyone recruited, that shows how important engagement is, as well as dialog, because this was all word of mouth.
--For justice, as long as we don't become a corrupt group, our sense of justice will still be there...avoid corruption by taking responsibility for yourself and your actions...and follow the values here... in AND out of street team
--If we aren't being peaceful outside of street team, etc, its hard to be so IN the street team
--Finding out how all these values are connected in real life, and together as well, is very important here.
--Your actions affect the community in the long run
--Work together as a team
--Communication of what we are doing

Then Rus read the poem "Let America Be America Again" WE asked a bunch of questions. I'll post the questions, then a list of the answers.

What about America makes you most proud?
- People who stand up for what they believe in
-Street team
-Solving a lot of the issues with slavery
-Influencing the younger generation to create change
-the foresight of our founding fathers(The freedom of speech etc that we have...where lots of people don't)
-That we can smile.
-people have the right to make change. if you don't like it, try to change it.
-Affirmative action
-Advising young children(ie: ask permission to join stuff like this. We talked about KD and Cody and all them... listen to the younger generation, they are wise beyond their years)

What about America(or your community) makes you sad?
-Police corruption and brutality
-no generosity/helping hands
-complacency
-Nobody waves back anymore...or smiles back(Lets all just go back to being kids on the bus here. Just a smile goes a longway)
-Heads are too far above the clouds. We think we are better than everyone
-T.V.
-Self-centered; we don't see the possibility for change.
-not enough activists/positive people
-drugs&guns
-shame;afraid to be claimed as american sometimes
-Healthcare, especially preventive healthcare
-too highly sensualized
-not enough focus on issues
-general ignorance on democratic issues
-selfishness
-Societal arrogance(it's okay to invade other countries, etc)
-"It's not our problem" attitudes
-people think change takes too much effort
-apathy
-racism and sexism
-we buy everything now and nobody knows how to DO anything (knitting, sewing, cooking, e tc)
-Media
-Education
-Discrimination

What one thing would you change about America(or your community)?
-Foreign Policy
-Corporate Control
-Fairness
-Universal health care and preventive health care
-The "Us v. Them" mentality
-Expectations and Qualifications of law enforcement officials
-No Campaign contributions for someone to be able to be elected.
-America needs to slow down(Work, stress, etc)
-Institutional support for non-violence
-teaching kids media literacy
-wealth distribution
-Discrimination
-Respect
-Stereotypes
-Apathy
-More support for local businesses
-More focus on self improvement and growth
-Accountability
-Seeing someone as a person, not just based on color or religion, etc
-treat everyone equally
-better access to education
-Restoring respect for the law
-more youth programs
-Change power so it's not all corporate power
-Learn by practicing; don't avoid issues, instead engage in conversations with mutual respect
-Highways with bikes instead of cars
-cars that run by garbage

Envisioning the Future of America, finish the line "America will be______"
-a place where smiling in the street matters
-informed
-Peaceful
-engaged
-self-aware
-responsible
-empowered
-united
-repentant
-a guide for how to act and be
-a community
-Zombie-free
-less addicted
-educated
-healthy
-part of the world-wide community
-active
-green
-less self involved
-indivisible
-less dogmatic
-self-reliant
-virtuous by nature
-willing to listen and learn
-awesome
-smart

Next we talked about our next meeting and had some announcements:
-Next meeting will be August 5th, hopefully at First Unitarian Church on 14th and LAfayette close to downtown. (I'm checking with my church. Should know tomorrow hopefully)
-Rus will keep people updated on the Tent State Events at the DNC. IF you want to volunteer, we'll be posting events on FWT, and you can message Rus. We have a little over 30 volunteers and we need a lot more than that.
-We're talking about cleaning up that lot where the video was shot. It has plans, but they gave us another idea for a place. There is a forum in the "organization" forum section. It'd be great to do
-There are more I didn't get a chance to write down. Just post them as a comment here if you'd like, or make a thread about it.

For our closing, we did a little "I liked, I learned, I wished". We asked people what they liked, learned and wished we had at this, and I've got some of the answers....all the ones we got to write down, lol

I liked:
--There weren't any wrong answers. Everyone was open to everyone else's ideas and opinions
--Open-mindedness
--The comfortable atmosphere
--Conversations with new people
--Seeing people face to face(I think it was NAImoshe who said "I am starting to hate computers now, because I like this face to face thing...correct me if I'm wrong on that, lol)
--cool people with the same values

I learned
--What people look like in real life
--about tons of events and ideas
--gained faith in america and the human race a little more
--we have potential
--there is a lot of motivation

I wished:
--there were more people like us
--That street team meetings could get bigger, even though we had a good turn out
--we had more time
--more culturalism
--more potlucks and social events with street team
--a flobots performance at a street team event???

And with that... our meeting ended. I hope this helps the people who couldn't make it, and maybe this will help organizers for other cities when they do wake up sessions if they haven't already. IT's good to have a bunch of wake up sessions as you get more members, so that everyone can go through this at some point. It was a great experience. hehe