Pajarito Group

Meetings

Wednesday, June 6, 7:00 PM, Upstairs Meeting Room, Mesa Public Library

Sandy Hurlocker:  The Santa Fe National Forest

Sandy Hurlocker, the Forest Service Representative for Los Alamos County, will speak on land use and recreation plans in the Santa Fe National Forest.  Hurlocker is on the USFS team working within New Mexico to create a new roads-and-trails plan that will designate which trails will be hiking only, and which will be open to vehicles. Come take advantage of this opportunity learn about planning and to voice your opinions.

There will be no general meeting in July or August. Enjoy the summer!

Outings

Thursday, 4:30 PM, May 17: Do The Two Miles.  We will meet at Ponderosa Campground (the junction of West Jemez Rd and State Rd 4) and head to the Group’s adopted-mile clean-up at the edge of the Valle Caldera.  Spend an hour in the beautiful evening light picking up trash along the fence.  Bring gloves, and a truck if you have one. Dave Gemeinhart, 672-6267.

Thursday June 21, 5:00 PM: Summer Solstice Hike and Potluck at the Top of Pajarito.  Meet at the Pajarito Mountain Ski Area Lodge at 5 pm.  Bring food and drink to share, your own utensils/plates, warm clothes, and a flashlight.  We will hike 45-60 minutes to the deck between the Aspen and Mother lifts. Head down at 8 PM, to get back to the lodge before 9:00.  All welcome.  Jean Dewart 662-9592.

The Alchemy of Activism—Activist Training Camp Inspires Leadership

            Remember the story of the frog in the pot where you drop a frog in a pot of tepid water, then gradually raise the water temperature along with the frog’s tolerance for heat, and only too late does the frog realize he’s soup?

            The frog in the pot is the sociologists’ model for developing tolerance for discomfort that, had it not been a gradual habituation to “well, it’s not that bad yet,” would have resulted in outrage.  It’s also the model of our current policy makers.  Wilderness and clear skies disappear, along with potable water and honeybees.  But hey, it’s not so bad.  Not yet.

            Meanwhile, the frog in the pot gets cooked.

            At this point in history, however, the Sierra Club sees two pots coming to boil.  One is death for the frog, but the other is the fire of alchemy in which base matter becomes gold. One is the end of Nature, the other is the transformation of culture. Alchemy happens when you throw a bunch of Sierra Club local leaders into Leadership Development Training (LDT), put the pressure on, and see what you come up with. Soup? Or something so valuable that it can change the world.

            The Sierra Club’s National Leadership organized the LDT in reaction to the fact that although the 750,000 Sierra Club members love the living planet Earth, few participate in any effective action to save it.  Oh sure we pay our dues, but few groups mobilize to use their large numbers to lobby any level of government for change.  We individual groups don’t use our clout to change public policy.

            To build the best possible advocacy, National enlisted trainers in organizational effectiveness, including Marshall Ganz from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

            Ganz says that individual members in the Sierra Club share common values.  Together we can decide on our goals.  The more significant the goals, the more necessary the organization.  If the goal is critical, our volunteerism is as valuable as any salaried job.  To be effective, we volunteers must consider our efforts essential to accomplishing the group’s goals, and even though we are volunteers, the action we volunteered to take is critical to our goal.

            The goal of developing leadership is “…to find ways to revitalize democratic organizations, develop their leadership, and engage their members.”  As Ganz says, “Disorganization is a group divided, confused, passive, reactive, drifting, and inert.  Organization is a community with mutual understanding, participation, action, initiative, and purpose.”

            The power in the Sierra Club is that we as a group with common goals can accomplish what a bunch of individuals, no matter how strenuous, can’t.  “Participation,” Ganz says, “isn't just a million individuals making individual choices: it's a social activity in which some people take responsibility to mobilize others.” The leaders being trained are the “some people.”

            Mobilizing people requires buy-in to a collective story.  A story—about us—connects us, not only to our own cellular memory, but to the rest of our “family” and to our place in history.  There’s: “I’m a Sierran because I believe in conservation.”  Then there’s: “It had only been a week since I’d been to the trailhead, so when I saw the piles of rocks and bulldozed trees inside a fence warning ‘Jemez Estates, No Trespassing,’ I felt I’d lost not only my way, but my soul.”  Emotions can transform into action. Your story can convert inertia to urgency, fear to hope, apathy to anger, isolation to solidarity, and self-doubt to We-Can-Make-a-Difference.  You—that’s you—can make the difference.

            Are you intrigued?  Do you want to try the last session in June?  If you do, here’s what you can expect:

            The alchemy is the in the process.  It feels like being thrust into a pressure cooker where the intensity of the interaction is so high you can’t hold onto your preconceived notions, and just as you think you’ll implode, voila!—out comes an amazing new element called Action that could have never happened had you all not been forced to work together.

            The alchemist is the facilitator who helps the team establish rules of behavior, then uses a stopwatch and a flipcharted outline to force you through the agenda.  When time’s up on one bullet, you move on to the next.  You think the strict outline is absurd? Too bad, you have to follow it.  You have your own agenda to promote? Too bad, you have to listen to those of the other team members.  You think you’re not ready as the last minute ticks down? Too bad.  Come to an answer.  The come-to-an-answer-under-extreme-pressure is what creates the new synthesis that not one of you thought of before.

            What got cooked up in October was our very successful First Annual Environmental Powwow. The March training came up with our working with the County to ensure the new Boyer development on the Trinity Site will be “Green.”  Do you like it?  Will you call counselors, go to County meetings, or write letters? 

            Do you want to attend the final Training, June 8 through 11 in Albuquerque? Call one of the ExCom members to volunteer, and watch our emails for The Plan. 

            The Pajarito Group awaits your story.