Organizing and Statigic Plans

I returned late last night from 4 days in Las Vegas at the AFT/NHP Organizing Conference.  It was both tiring and rewarding.
It's good to be home.
There were approximately 50 organizers from around the country and it was an opportunity to learn techniques others have tried and to improve our skills, to catch up with friends and meet new ones.
Some of the participants are incredibly skilled and gifted, some are organizing directors of their state federations, some were relative newcomers, and a handful elected leaders, or as I call us, "amateur organizers."
We heard stories of organizing campaigns and learned and practiced skills, such as writing a campaign plan.
Members deserve to have skilled people working for them, developing strategic plans, and making smart investments of time and resources.
That was what this conference was about.

Organizing is not just an activity we undertake to bring members into our union.  It is what we do to increase internal unity, to prepare for contract negotiations, to pass new legislation, to find, recruit, train, and elect union members to public office and union leadership.

More than an "activity," it is a philosophy that needs to guide our every action, because our strength is in our numbers and the more members and community involved, the  stronger we all become.

To be successful, we must adopt this organizational philosophy, we must have a well thought out strategic plan, and we must execute that plan. Our members deserve that and it is incumbent on elected leaders to guide this.
These are the things we practiced at the conference.
These are the things we at AFT Connecticut are committed to practice.

They say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and while that may be true of the "team building" that occurred on our downtime, it will not be true of what we learned and practiced in the conference.