Anyone who has talked to me in the last week or so has probably heard some grumbling about having to attend "Media Bootcamp" (i.e., the Spin Academy) for work. Despite all of my certainty that it wouldn't be fun and I wouldn't make any friends, I had a really good time.
Bootcamp was held at Walker Creek Ranch outside of Petaluma--far, far away from the land of cell phone service. We stayed in dorms, ate (and ate and ate--they were trying to feed us every two hours. No exaggeration.) in a cafeteria, and kept it all pretty low key. It's been a long time since I've been any place quite this rural; the main activties for free time were hiking and swimming in the pond, and everywhere you looked there was wildlife: rabbits, foxes, deer, turkeys (lots of turkeys) and crickets almost as big as my fist.
And I did learn a lot about communications and media. Some of it I already knew (and it was just nice to have it reiterated that I was doing it right) and a lot of it I didn't. Maybe the best thing I got out of all the training is that it is completely stupid for an organization as large as ours (and doing so much program work) not to have at least one full-time, dedicated communication staff person. 50% of my time (and by 50%, I really mean 15% on a good week) isn't going to cut it when it comes down to what I think we as an organization want to achieve, communications wise. And going "Quick! We have an action next week--go get some media" is not actually a viable or reasonable communications plan. I guess what the Spin Academy really did for me is verified that I am not, in fact, a fuck-up as a communications person. I might end up being one, but there hasn't really been a fair and thorough opportunity to find out yet, because what's been functioning as "communications" in our office is so far (and so much narrower) than what it should be.
I was also reminded that activists and organizers are great people. It's really inspiring and energizing to be around people who are passionate about what they do, and more specifically, are passionate about trying to make the world a better place. And if they also happen to be cute, funny and from Texas, well that's just icing on the activist cake.
Anyway, overall it was a good week/weekend: Beautiful scenery, new skills, movement people and a lot of beer thrown in for good measure and I really have no complaints.
Except that I'm tired as hell and have to go to work tomorrow.
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