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The Conference is Over--Now What?! |
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Posted 11/19/2009 at 3:05 PM by Scott M |
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The month prior to a PeaceJam Youth Conference is a crazy one for all involved.
PeaceJammers are excited to meet the Laureate, furiously fundraising for their projects and conference costs.
Advisors are chasing down all the endless paperwork and forms while covering as much of the Ambassadors curriculum as possible.
Mentors are being recruited and trained and studying up on the Laureate.
Staff (including VISTAs, Volunteers, and others) are finalizing workshop plans, making travel and lodging arrangements, reserving rooms, soliciting donations for the service project, sending news releases, promoting the public talk and conference on the web and Facebook and sites like peacejam.org, answering copious questions, ordering t-shirts, food, and supplies, and generally taking care of logistics and continuing outreach to ensure that as many people as possible get to have the PeaceJam experience.
The Laureate is juggling myriad commitments, while trying to prepare to deliver the best experience to inspire the PeaceJammers and battling jetlag and continuing their work on the world's pressing issues.
Then conference week arrives.
Staff members make all the last minute arrangements on Wednesday, followed by airport runs and the mentor training on Thursday, followed by more airport runs and the public talk on Friday night, followed by Saturday's full-blown, all-out jamming (including a wild and wacky evening entertainment) and Sunday's inspirational beginning and learning all we can from one another through Global Call to Action presentations.
Immediately after, there's the debriefing, site cleanup, post-event travel, tying up loose ends, updating the databases with what actually happened, who attended, etc., and getting everyone properly thanked.
Then, amid the sheer exhaustion caused by numerous nights with little to no sleep, sorting of photo and video footage to ensure we capitalize on the opportunities to get more folks involved, we stop and take a moment...
We think about what an amazing experience PeaceJam offers to all who are involved. We change lives. We change people who will in turn change the world.
And, in our case, we think of Thanksgiving, which always follows our conference.
And we are thankful for all who give so much to make sure that this great thing we call PeaceJam continues to thrive and to ensure that BOLD change starts here--and continues!
Thanks to all (including our families and friends who have been ignored for the prior month!) who helped make Heartland PeaceJam possible.
You are appreciated!
Scott |
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