12:04 AM -:- Posted by Allen    

Our first public county meeting

Tonight from 6-9:30 we held our first meeting of the Santa Clara County WTP coordinator, volunteers and guests, at the IHOP in Santa Clara (city).

We had about 12 people all told, and we had a pretty good time. Only one guest was not well-informed about WTP, so only a little time was spent telling him the story. Almost all the rest of the time was spent going around the table, each of us introducing self and telling how and why we got into this movement.

Not much real "business" got done, but I hadn't planned for it to be done. As I told everyone at the beginning, it was planned to be a somewhat informal get-to-know-each-other meeting. We'll start more serious agendas when the regular meetings begin on Sept 9th.

And get to know each other we did. As one attendee said as he was leaving, he was glad we did that, because he found himself impressed with the depth of the group and that they were all thinking people who were in this for reasons that went beyond self-interest or shallowness.

We found that we are a very substantial core group.

This is what I had hoped would happen. Later, as the inevitable frictions arise, we'll all have reasons for staying connected despite small differences. A solid basis for mutual respect. And that means that frictions will result in negotiation and adjustment more often than abandonment. Thus we will grow and meld together as a group, and that should give us power to accomplish things.

Hopefully, my management style, which includes this kind of communion and also the practice of assigning people to do the things they already care about most, will drive us to great accomplishments.

That is my hope and my intent. So let it be done.