Birmingham, England       Good times in Edinburgh!  I was reminded that I had been in Scotland since the pandemic, having joined our members in Glasgow in 2022 at COP26 there in the cold and rain, but I had not been in Edinburgh for some time.  Before coming, I had reached out to two of the founding members of ACORN’s work in the United Kingdom, Keir Lawson and Jon Black, and promised them we would have a reunion over curry, what they had often touted as the national dish, and talk over times old and new, my treat.

So go the plans of mice and men before a laughing god.  Emma Saunders, the head organizer of ACORN’s affiliate in Scotland, Living Rent, I had warned them was the master of my time on this part of the island.  She conceded some time for such reminiscing, but appointed an hour when she would arrive along with the two key officers of Living Rent who were coming over from Glasgow and would also join in.  It was an appropriate hijacking of course, although so much for my treat.  Even though exhausted, still reeling from a couple of hours sleep on the plane from Chicago and a day chock full of meetings, the visit was great and the conversation lively from front to back.

One of the funny bits, as they say on this side of the water, were the conversations, back and forth, about who was present at the birthing of these great organizations in both Scotland and England-Wales?  This was a record worth getting straight, as the Living Rent chair, Ruth Gilbert argued, perhaps an oral history was needed before even more years go by.  There was no doubt though that Jon and Keir bore the full share of the credit or blame, depending on whom might be interviewed.  There was also some triangulation involved.  Both had been involved in Edinburgh Private Tenants Action Group (EPTAG), which made the first approach to ACORN.  Jon was familiar with a book written by Robert Fisher that had spent some time discussing ACORN and its approach to community organizing.  An early outreach had failed, but between them they reached out to David Tozzo in Rome on Facebook, because he had mentioned some involvement with ACORN on a tenant issue there.  Tozzo then connected them to me, and lickety-split we were talking on Skype, and I had promised some 14 years ago around 2012 to visit Edinburgh and see what might be possible.  The evolution then saw EPTAG becoming an ACORN affiliate, then migrated to ACORN Scotland, and then to Living Rent, first as a campaign and then as an organization, which today is ACORN’s affiliate with over 5000 members and offices dotted throughout Scotland.

There’s more as well.  If Jon may have started with Keir the search and find to ACORN, Keir with Jon also reached out to comrades they knew with similar interests who were located in Bristol that included Louie Herbert, Stu Melvin, and Nick Ballard.  With Keir’s help, I made contact with as well, and it wasn’t long before we were meeting together over curry at Louie’s, and 13 years later, there’s ACORN England & Wales with 7000 members and a long list of accomplishments today.

None of this ended the conversation of course.  When did Emma come on board was also a story.  Who were others?  Where did we stand now?

Adding more spice to the stew, as soon as I walked into the Safari Lounge, where we were meeting not that far from the office, I also recognized this as the place where Jon, Keir and I also were together at the farewell celebration for Ode Lunardi, then with ACORN Canada, who had been visiting the UK for weeks doing training to set up ACORN in Bristol, Reading, London, and Edinburgh.

Sometimes little things like a random Facebook message or a Skype call can end up yielding big results.  Certainly, that’s the story for ACORN in the United Kingdom from one end of the island to another.