Brussels It had been a busy day for our team in Brussels. We began with an early meeting with the home-and-away team to get our plans together. We split up with half of us heading to the office and half to hit the doors, meeting several members from our affiliate to test the rap and assess the turf. All that was interesting and allowed us to evaluate the new hire that we are subsidizing for the affiliate beginning in October. By the afternoon we were on a roll with a call to more clearly look at expansion and affiliation prospects in Europe, as well as better coordinating and consolidating our support for our fledgling affiliate and our organizing program in Belgium.
By 5pm we were standing in front of a cooperative meeting space in Brussels supported by the labor movement as part of their commitment to building progressive civil society. There was a schedule for a housing presentation later in the early evening by some WUUNE/ACORN members, but we were also evaluating the space as a location for our international organizers meeting in Brussels in two months. The kitchen looked good. The large space in the basement seemed workable. There were sufficient areas to image having workshops or breakout areas. We could have the space for the entire weekend for 500 euros, so it all seemed OK to lockdown. Furthermore, it was near areas that WUUNE leaders had targeted for potential expansion, so we might be able to add a thrill for the organizers coming into Brussels by teaming up with WUUNE members to do a blitz door knocking program for a couple of hours from 4 to 6pm while we were in town, which would be great! Craig Robbins and I commented that on ACORN conventions the favorite thing for members in the US and Canada, after only the big action on the final morning, was getting to hit the doors with local people, spreading the word, passing out petitions, and signing up members. This could be a shot in the arm for Brussels.
Emma Saunders from Living Rent/ ACORN in Scotland had joined us, so she represented at the housing presentation, while two of the leaders from WUUNE along with our general organizer and the sparkplug of our Belgium operation, Arnaud Bilande, and our prospective organizer joined us for a general organizational conversation about the current housing campaigns and where the organization was going. This free-flowing conversation for several hours was a highlight of our time in Brussels. We made progress in clarifying the strategy and tactics for the rent reduction campaign certainly, but also for building a citywide tenants union that move the needle across the board.
As we got to know each other better, we also understood the roles of each of the leaders. One was concentrating on the “back shop” infrastructure of the organization. Listening to him, we asked what database they were using, and it turned out to be Civi, which meant that our affiliate in Canada and our people in New Orleans could lend them a hand, given their years of experience with this open software. The other leader was co-chairing the campaign committee, but when we asked what both of them did besides WUUNE, it turned out that both had been involved in various land trust operations, experiences we knew well from the states. He had also worked in Flanders. I asked him if he spoke Dutch, as well as English and French, and, of course he did. I mentioned the continuing efforts we were making to recruit organizers for ACORN in the Netherlands, and could he help. Heck, he said a WUUNE member in the building now was from Amsterdam, and they would be glad to help us recruit.
Bingo! The magic of dialectical organizing, asking questions and listening carefully to see where the process might lead, had produced mutually beneficial opportunities on all sides of the table and deepened our relationships. Both of the leaders gave me their email addresses for follow-up. Who knows if we will solve all of the problems, but nothing but good will come out of the process, revealing again the magic of organizing.