Glasgow Two years ago, we met in the Netherlands. Last year found us welcoming a new ACORN affiliate by holding our meeting in Brussels with our Belgium affiliates. This year, we met in Glasgow, where our Scottish affiliate has been growing rapidly in recent years. We came with some trepidation. At the last minute, the group housing reservation had been summarily canceled, forcing a scramble to house everyone with staff, members, and a few hotel rooms in the city center. We were warned that the meeting space was both cavernous and unheated, forcing all of us to find our winter clothes, long underwear, gloves and scarves this side of January to be ready a 12 hour plus daily cold plunge. Adding another degree of difficulty, given the last-minute chaos, nothing was close to anything else which would inevitably add travel times to exhausted staff and make timely schedules for the meetings aspirational.
Saying all of this, at the end of the meeting, the staff and leaders pronounced the event a roaring success, proving once again that ACORN organizers can adapt and adjust to almost anything against all obstacles. The weather was milder than expected. The sun even shone as we ended the meeting. The room was chilly, but not frigid, allowing us to leave a lot of winter wear packed and unused, even while praising the virtues of wool socks and puffer jackets. The food was efficient, hot, and spicy. Another small victory out of the gaping jaws of defeat!
The agenda was jam packed with varied content, astute leadership, and excellent participation. Including the local members on the Friday who attended in the opening session, the numbers topped 80, and even as the organizers drug themselves in for the Sunday morning sessions, 50 of them were still standing, a record number for these events. There were more people around the table at the ACORN International board meeting than we had ever seen before, making it easier to handle some hard questions and problems the organization faces. The assembled dealt with skills, building new tools, handling adversity and conflict, recruiting and training, organizing philosophy and legacy, new initiatives and old school projects. You name it!
Like every meeting, the real value can only be judged by what happens when people return home and begin the work anew. Then we’ll see what people learned, what stuck, and what just washed over the crowd. For the moment though, the warm glow at the end of the meeting was impossible to miss.
Never one to get “the big head,” as ACORN’s first president Steve McDonald always warned fifty years ago, there could be no agenda, no workshops, no plenaries just the opportunity for 80 organizers and leaders to come together and share their work, ask their questions, join their worries and concerns to others in the recognition that the experiences are mutual and shared daily across the globe, and an annual meeting like this would still be judged a huge success and worth all the time, trouble, and money to make it happen. As Marva Burnett, ACORN’s president shared in her final remarks, “this is what builds ACORN!”