We had a meeting…
(A blog post by Joe Murphy)
I am introvert…or an extrovert…maybe an ambivert. I could be an introverted extrovert or an extroverted introvert…I guess what I’m saying is, I’m complicated like most people, and I don’t really love meetings. That’s not a novel opinion. The internet is full of memes from people who hate having meetings. It’s a whole subgenre.
When AJQ planned their first official in-person meeting, I was partially excited but also a bit nervous. But the meeting that happened Thursday night at the main branch of the TCPL was not what I expected. Over 50 people showed up!! Many of whom said this was their first time getting involved with community activism. That was exciting to hear. My flabber, was gasted.
I had a rough agenda for the meeting, but it just went out the door for a number of reasons.
FIFTY+ people!! That’s a lotta people.
The Thomas Crane Library’s fire alarm went off just as we got going.
We wanted to hear from people first.
As AJQ’s co-founders, Maggie and I ran the meeting, and it was a bit chaotic at times. We decided to go around the room and have each person share why they were interested and what they wanted to work on. Overall, we received some wonderful input. Here are some highlights:
Mark Your Calendars!!! The city council’s first meeting back from summer hiatus will be on September 9th. AJQ will be there in force. We plan to make a strong presence before the meeting and then attend it together. We did this before the last two meetings, but this time we hope to have a much larger crowd.
Get out those mail apps because we are emailing, folks!
We are going to keep up the pressure on our elected leaders, we want meetings or hearings to discuss the raises. We are not finished talking about this issue. These communication projects will be demanding our councilors make time to meet within their community to discuss our concerns. Right now there are two projects running in parallel:
We are We are creating an email template that people can personalize and send to city councilors.
We are drafting a formal letter to be sent to each city councilor, complete with signatures from their constituents.
Please participate in both initiatives if you can.
AJQ is going to do some research and report out the response rate people get from the letters they write to our elected leaders.
We are going to support a slate of city council candidates to challenge most of the existing council.
Subcommittees will be forming to tackle the various issues and tasks necessary for our mission’s success. If you have a specific strength, interest, or passion for one of our projects, email info@ajustquincy.com so we can keep you informed as these committees are established.
So this meeting was productive in its own way. Still meetings at this phase of our development will often be about preparing to meet. But as you saw from our petition referendum, we can cook when the time comes.
at AJQ, we promise to make meetings fun and productive, and rare.
What you can look forward to:
Check AJQ.com and this blog for instructions on how to participate in our letter and signature drive.
Look for a form that will help us determine how often our elected leaders are responding to us.
In the coming weeks, we will be figuring out the best organizational structure considering the size of our group and what we hope to accomplish. This will also include ways for us to fundraise.
Thanks, Joe Murphy
