A Report

[Douglas D. Germann, Sr.]

Hi--

Here is what happened on September 11, 2002, at South Bend, Indiana, in an
event called "What Good Can We Make of 9-11?"

A total of about 27 people attended at various times during the day. This was
a free public event.

During the start of posting of topics, one lady got up and left without a
word.

At the end of the posting of topics a young marine and a young lady and a
couple of children came in, apparently attracted by our "9-11" signs.
Someone explained to him what we were doing. He grabbed paper and marker, so
we waited for him to compose his topic. He posted a topic that the armed
services are really peace forces, and gave a 30 second speech on why this was
so. He left shortly after that and no one signed up for his topic.

17 topics were posted. They are listed at
http://www.footprintsinthewind.com/forum/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=911Good
and several pictures from the event are posted there as well.

The event was 3.5 hours. We opened a little after 3:00 pm (this was the
scheduled start and people only started arriving then), the first session was
at 3:55, the second at 4:50, and the closing session was at 5:40. We ended at
6:30.

There was some bumble-beeing around from session to session. I walked around
seeing how things were going during the first session and found one lady
sitting alone. I asked her if she were the only one, and she said yes. So I
sat with her for a little bit and we talked about her topic, and I told her I
knew someone in Peoria (Hi Dave!) who had done some work in getting more
renters to become homeowners (her topic). She already had a good list of
ideas before I came in, and those are in her report, which is also posted.

About 15 minutes from the end of the second session two people came in
separately and joined one of the discussions. They apparently added good
things in some depth to their conversation, from what they had to say in the
closing listening stick circle.

The most common thing we heard as we went around the circle was that people
felt a sense of community with these folks who had a few hours earlier been
strangers.

Several said they wanted to get more involved in volunteer activities.

One said that she had come in with a lot of anger over 9-11 and had
dissipated that during our OS.

And my wife was so enthused over the idea of trying to encourage
neighborliness among neighbors that this weekend we had a backyard cake and
coffee get together for our neighbors and met some people we had never met
in the 5 years we've lived here!

There were no topics posted about terrorism or remembering what had happened:
all topics were forward-looking.

What did we learn? It takes a lot of effort to get the logistics together,
even for an OST event--lots of volunteers, calls, finding of space, food,
drink, arranging for access to the space ahead of time, etc.

Also, it is easier to get donations of food and such from local businesses
and organizations than from national ones--they have plenty of gates set up
to fend off people asking for donations.

And, as Michael Herman would say, it takes a lot of personal inviting to make
it happen!

I got bleary-eyed sending thank you notes to people after--it takes the
efforts of many people!

A ton of thanks to all of you who shared your wisdom as we were trying to put
this together!

                              :-Doug. Germann

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