An online community for eradicating bogus bug eradication programs.
Loss of uncounted numbers of potential activists
I am deeply distressed by the thought? fact? that contact with maybe a thousand activists in San Francisco have been lost. It took so very much time and effort by untold numbers of people to accrue these contacts on sign up sheets and petitions collected by many, many hours of door-todoor canvassing, tabling, and communicating with neighbors and organizations. These people in turn made copies of petitions and sign up sheets and were filled by untold numbers of people. Their instructions were to send in the petitions, etc. to other addresses.
Perhaps other people had an inkling about what was about to and has happened, but from my personal history, I was merely informed about the change of name of the San Francsico group after the fact of the name change and the resulting loss of maybe thousands of contacts. How many people in San Francisico are still in possession of the petitions and sign up sheets and are sending them elsewhere with no data collection for San Francisco? How does this affect people who are eager to work (we all know that the work is far from being over) but who never hear from us again after signing up? As far as I know, the change of name and the resulting loss of data was never announced through a mass email. How many contacts are left? I know I became re-connected only after I phoned one of the people in the "core" group. I would not have been able to re-connect if I were not active from day one and was lucky enough to have, through initiative, obtained a couple of phone numbers. Since the beginning, people have been dropping out, probably through burn out, but often without saying a word to anyone about why,, but just fading away. If you are one of these people, I would appreciate your being open and forthright about the reasons for dropping out so that San Franciscans against pesticides can analyze our mistakes and correct them before the next campaign that will be sure to come. It is possible that we may get only 72 hours notice before the next chemical assault. We have to stay prepared to mobilize.
I like this new forum. Thank you, Kevin. I am hoping that there will be more open communications between the leaders of the San Francisco group and San Franciscans who are opposed to pesticides. We are looking forward to hearing from Ester, who has given valiantly of her time, who these leaders are, what roles they play within the organization, and how to contact them. We are thankful to her entire family for the sacrifices they have given. i ask that before anyone else steps down from their roles, that a full transfer of information take place...that one trains another. In these cases, the work load has been so heavy that perhaps several people need to participate in taking over one person's job. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT THE CONTACT LIST BE GIVEN IN FULL TO AT LEAST TWO PEOPLE so that the INFORMATION GATHERED IS NOT LOST. I know of one person who gathered information of over 200 people and that was months ago. I don't know if she is still working on it.
I'm wondering if we don't need a formalized membership. If we were all regarded as legitamate members, we could have discussions and vote on important decisions that affect us all. We also need to be able to continue to have discussion and small groups.
Democracy requires it.
So what may be missing? A large all invited meeting focused on the organization itself without guest speakers. Guest speakers are critical, but right now, I feel that there is a crisis that we need to tend to first, and that has to do with both structure and procedure.
For instance, the yard sale to benefit Sophia Healing Center on July 12, noon - 5 needs donations to be brought to 776 Haight Street between Pierce and Scott. Sophia HC will be holding an open house that day. It is important that SHC be supported because as far as I know they are the first SF neighborhood center to offer a weekly meeting space for people opposed to pesticides. If there are other regularly scheduled meetings elsewhere, please post the information here at this forum.
At our last weekly meeting, held from 6-7:30 pm on Thursdays, the question was asked if people outside the steering committee were permitted to observe at the steering committee meetings. I think that the purpose of this is to make the San Francisco group more alive and dynamic. When one goes to the web page and sees mainly a list of jobs to be done, and as important as those jobs are, its not as good a motivator as collective interaction and a flow of information from all directions to all directions as this forum attempts to do. A number of the people who have been the most active supporters of the work do not have computers, do not use computers, or cannot use computers because of health reasons. These people, of course would not have access to this forum.
In closing for now, i want to thank the people who worked behind the scenes whom we have not even met. I want to invite all the highly valued people who dropped out and continued working on their own, feeling that they could do more without an organization. That could be in my future as well, but I sincerely and passionately believe that we need to group up to be effective in the struggles ahead. One example is that our Parks and Rec Dept continues to use permethrin and violates the 72 hour legal notice regulations. When you go to a park or any public area that is maintained by park and rec, and see dried up brown areas, usually in sections of park areas or along pathways or around posts, its probably the dreaded permethrin.
We all know we have a lot of work ahead of us.
A positive note to end on is that on Friday, June 27, the Chronicle published an article by Carolyn Lochead entitled "Plea for help as the bees disappear...No pollinators, not fruit or nuts, food industry warns Congress." The big news is that parts of the food industry are now alarmed and wary of pesticides including pheromones. Thank Haagan-Dazs. Maybe our letters and phone calls to the Pro-Spray Legislators were listened to. Will the person who identitied the pro spray legislators answer this post/ I want to know who you and are thank you properly.
Sometimes the people to make their work visible to the public in their outreach don't know who is doing the tremendous amount of research and following up with notices and letter writings. These unseen heros, please step forward and be recognized!
Perhaps other people had an inkling about what was about to and has happened, but from my personal history, I was merely informed about the change of name of the San Francsico group after the fact of the name change and the resulting loss of maybe thousands of contacts. How many people in San Francisico are still in possession of the petitions and sign up sheets and are sending them elsewhere with no data collection for San Francisco? How does this affect people who are eager to work (we all know that the work is far from being over) but who never hear from us again after signing up? As far as I know, the change of name and the resulting loss of data was never announced through a mass email. How many contacts are left? I know I became re-connected only after I phoned one of the people in the "core" group. I would not have been able to re-connect if I were not active from day one and was lucky enough to have, through initiative, obtained a couple of phone numbers. Since the beginning, people have been dropping out, probably through burn out, but often without saying a word to anyone about why,, but just fading away. If you are one of these people, I would appreciate your being open and forthright about the reasons for dropping out so that San Franciscans against pesticides can analyze our mistakes and correct them before the next campaign that will be sure to come. It is possible that we may get only 72 hours notice before the next chemical assault. We have to stay prepared to mobilize.
I like this new forum. Thank you, Kevin. I am hoping that there will be more open communications between the leaders of the San Francisco group and San Franciscans who are opposed to pesticides. We are looking forward to hearing from Ester, who has given valiantly of her time, who these leaders are, what roles they play within the organization, and how to contact them. We are thankful to her entire family for the sacrifices they have given. i ask that before anyone else steps down from their roles, that a full transfer of information take place...that one trains another. In these cases, the work load has been so heavy that perhaps several people need to participate in taking over one person's job. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT THE CONTACT LIST BE GIVEN IN FULL TO AT LEAST TWO PEOPLE so that the INFORMATION GATHERED IS NOT LOST. I know of one person who gathered information of over 200 people and that was months ago. I don't know if she is still working on it.
I'm wondering if we don't need a formalized membership. If we were all regarded as legitamate members, we could have discussions and vote on important decisions that affect us all. We also need to be able to continue to have discussion and small groups.
Democracy requires it.
So what may be missing? A large all invited meeting focused on the organization itself without guest speakers. Guest speakers are critical, but right now, I feel that there is a crisis that we need to tend to first, and that has to do with both structure and procedure.
For instance, the yard sale to benefit Sophia Healing Center on July 12, noon - 5 needs donations to be brought to 776 Haight Street between Pierce and Scott. Sophia HC will be holding an open house that day. It is important that SHC be supported because as far as I know they are the first SF neighborhood center to offer a weekly meeting space for people opposed to pesticides. If there are other regularly scheduled meetings elsewhere, please post the information here at this forum.
At our last weekly meeting, held from 6-7:30 pm on Thursdays, the question was asked if people outside the steering committee were permitted to observe at the steering committee meetings. I think that the purpose of this is to make the San Francisco group more alive and dynamic. When one goes to the web page and sees mainly a list of jobs to be done, and as important as those jobs are, its not as good a motivator as collective interaction and a flow of information from all directions to all directions as this forum attempts to do. A number of the people who have been the most active supporters of the work do not have computers, do not use computers, or cannot use computers because of health reasons. These people, of course would not have access to this forum.
In closing for now, i want to thank the people who worked behind the scenes whom we have not even met. I want to invite all the highly valued people who dropped out and continued working on their own, feeling that they could do more without an organization. That could be in my future as well, but I sincerely and passionately believe that we need to group up to be effective in the struggles ahead. One example is that our Parks and Rec Dept continues to use permethrin and violates the 72 hour legal notice regulations. When you go to a park or any public area that is maintained by park and rec, and see dried up brown areas, usually in sections of park areas or along pathways or around posts, its probably the dreaded permethrin.
We all know we have a lot of work ahead of us.
A positive note to end on is that on Friday, June 27, the Chronicle published an article by Carolyn Lochead entitled "Plea for help as the bees disappear...No pollinators, not fruit or nuts, food industry warns Congress." The big news is that parts of the food industry are now alarmed and wary of pesticides including pheromones. Thank Haagan-Dazs. Maybe our letters and phone calls to the Pro-Spray Legislators were listened to. Will the person who identitied the pro spray legislators answer this post/ I want to know who you and are thank you properly.
Sometimes the people to make their work visible to the public in their outreach don't know who is doing the tremendous amount of research and following up with notices and letter writings. These unseen heros, please step forward and be recognized!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Esther San Miguel on -
Dear Jade and friends,
I want to let you know that I took the final decision of leaving my role as a volunteer coordinator for good. I know I promised you at least to have the next meeting with you but I can't go this way any longer. I have been neglecting my family for a long time and my kids, (4 years old and 9 months baby) need their mother with them.
I want to acknowledge all your help, time and dedication to this cause. We did stopped the aerial spray and without you it couldn't have been possible, people like you who really did the effort of spraying the word and taking action is what made the difference and I want to express my gratefulness to you.
Also I want to share with you the latest information:
1) Apparently there were multiple law suits from the cities that passed resolutions against the areal spray going to be filed on Friday June 20.
2) Because of these imminent law suits CDFA on Thursday June 19 announced that they will not do areal spray in urban areas.
3) The law suits didn't go ahead because apparently many of them were base in the resolution passed by the cities against areal spray only not ground (???). For example the city of Berkeley passed a resolution against areal and ground but Oakland only against areal. I am not sure about SF.
4) If any of you have the time you may check the resolutions on the site:
www.ccc.stopthespray.org (Coalition of California Cities to stop the spray) as I mentioned in my last meeting, in this site you will find also more than 88 organizations against the spray.
5) I will not be able to send you the list of the people involved in the steering committee since Michelle will do it.
6) I brought to her and Lisa Abbot your legitimate concerns regarding:
- lack of transparency
- lack of connection between the volunteers and the steering committee not know what they do, so hopefully for the sake of transparency they will share all the info with you since I don't have all the info myself.
-I forgot to mention the possibility of having visitors at one of the meetings
7) Fortunately for us Stop the Spray Marin as well as Stop the Spray East Bay are very strong teams not only financially but, with politicians, lawyers, doctors, journalist and professionals of multimedia on board
8) For San Francisco, we are very fortunate that Sandie Schmaier, a very influential person who is working individually, not only has been fund raising for SF law suit but also getting the rich and the beautiful involved by spreading the word among the more influential people in SF. After all money is what prevails.
9) When I was at the table for the BIG ONE two weeks ago I got the following information regarding this event you may find interesting to attend:
Non-violent Civil Disobedience Training around Apple Month Eradication Program
Saturday, July 19th, 2008 10 AM 5:30 PM in 1924 Cedar St at Bonita in Berkeley
10) For you to have an idea of what I was doing here is the list:
- volunteer meetings every Thursday at 6:30 PM
- develop the agenda for each volunteer meeting
- research and print the new developments for each week to communicate to the volunteers (using Nan Wishner' newsletter, CDFA website and the media information I find in Internet, that have not been covered by Nan)
- weekly researching the events related to the Stop the Spray movement
- weekly researching events not related to the Stop the Spray movement that we can have a table at to inform people and recruit volunteers. (The Big One, Carnaval, Cinco de Mayo, Bay to Breakers, etc.)
- Table at events (set-up, talking to people, organizing volunteers, clean-up, etc.)
- Prepare all the materials for the table
- Entering the new email address from all the events I have been tabling into my spread sheet I created since I came in board that I share with you.
- writing the content for the volunteers in the email blast
- entering the events into the SprayAlert.org socia
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Permalink Reply by Jade Lai on -
Thanks very much! No one is disputing that you need and deserve a well earned rest from so much responsibility!
My primary concern is the list of contacts...that they not be lost and that as each person steps down, that that information is passed on as a legacy so that not all the hard work needs to be repeated. It may be necessary in the future to reach everyone quickly.
Thank you for telling us about Sandie's work. I hope that I can find her contact information as I do want to continue to work with a group.
Do you mind if we not change the schedule of the Thursday meetings? As on the schedule posted on the door, we can meet between 6 and 7:30.
This is especially pertinent since you will not be there anyway.
Hopefully, we will be able to find someone to send out emails. While this forum is good, the down side is that there is no way that I know of to print the posts to pass on to others.
Enjoy your family, and get a good rest. PASS ON THE LIST OF CONTAC TS.
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Permalink Reply by Jade Lai on
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It is incredible that you have been doing all these things! No wonder you did not have time to share everything with the volunteers!
Questions:
1. will you be sharing the new email addresses with anyone?
2. how does one sign up for the Nan Wishner newsletter?
jade
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Permalink Reply by kevinkrejci on -
Hi Jade,
Thanks for your honest feedback. I can understand your frustration, and appreciate all the hard work you've done for this cause. Despite the fact we've "stopped the spray" of "urban areas", we still have a lot of work to do, and I hope we can all keep the momentum going and help our movement grow beyond just the aerial spray of urban areas for the light brown apple moth. We need to envision happy farmers and a healthy world living together in a world free of pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, and othercides. If we don't keep up what we're doing, they'll just keep finding more emergency bugs to eradicate, and more places to apply goo, splat, spray, and other forms of stuff marked "Keep out of reach of children". It is great to hear the news that Ben and Jerry and Hagan-Daz and other folks in the food industry are waking up to the science and realizing there has got be a better way. That the collateral costs and the waste all adds up.
Regarding your point about the sign-up sheets, you may need to talk to Stop the Spray SF about that. I'm not sure the status and if there were some legal issues of using names acquired when doing business as CASS-SF.
Thanks for the comments on this network too. My initial intent was to give everybody who cares the tools to have a voice and to self-organize around the issues of the LBAM eradication program. In my daytime job, I research emerging technologies and collaboration tools and believe this can help the various groups to connect in an at-hoc way to share ideas, videos, photos, and most importantly - wisdom. Any member can post an event (or call for a meeting somewhere), create a blog post, find the latest LBAM news, or search for and connect with other people who care about the issue. It is in the spirit of Wikipedia - of the people, for the people, by the people. (And in the general spirit of democracy too, of course.)
I realize some people don't have computers, but much of the younger generation lives in social networks (and think email is so 90's), and they have lot's of passion and free time to help our cause, so my hope is that we can start using this effectively, and start inviting all our friends to join who will invite their friends to join, etc., creating the network effect, which I refer to in the attached presentation. This is one I whipped up to explain the mission of this network. (See PDF link below titled "Spray Alert Network Overview")
There are a lot of great people in several different groups in many different locations that are all working hard on this issue. A lot of us are burning the midnight oil, like you, while raising families and working other jobs, and not getting paid for it, so it is hard to run ourselves with the same efficiency of a corporation like Monsanto or Exxon-Mobil, but I think if we all do our part and try to spread the word and get more people involved just doing what little bit they can, we can keep this ball rolling and do more than just temporarily stop aerial sprays of urban areas...
Thanks again for your hard work and support, and contributions to this network! Please let me know any other comments or questions you have.
Kevin - Attachments:
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Spray Alert Network Overview.pdf, 728 KB
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Permalink Reply by Jade Lai on
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Thank you so very much, Kevin, for your thoughtful reply and all your past work. I am happy to know that anyone can post an event or participate in the discussions.
jade
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Permalink Reply by kevinkrejci on
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Hi Jade,
Regarding ways to print posts to pass on to others, here are some options:
1. Find the page you want to print, then click file and print from your browser.
2. Select the section of text you want to print and copy it into another document (like Microsoft Word or other word processor, or even email message window) and print from there (in case you want to modify or customize it).
For sharing with people you know by email, just look for the "SHARE" links. They're all over this site, so you can share just about anything with anybody you know, including photos, videos, blog posts, discussions, etc. You can add your own message when you forward it, and access your email address book for some systems like Gmail, Hotmail, etc. You can also share with anybody in this network that you are friends with. To add friends, you can go to the members page, then click them. They'll get the request if they are open to it, then if they approve, you become friends and can share things more easily after that. It is an "opt-in" basis, to avoid us spamming each other with too many messages, so like real life, you need to choose your friends carefully...
Thanks,
Kevin
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