Last Saturday, I went to the How to Make the World a Better Place conference for people (beginners or experienced) who want to work towards positive social/environmental change. I was floored by how awesome and chock-full of goodness this event was. Can you believe, a completely volunteer-run all-day conference with more than 30 sessions to choose from, a bound notebook of all the session handouts, and it took place like two blocks down the street from where I live, and cost all of $20 and included lunch and a snack? Also, most of the presenters and conference-goers were local, so it was inspiring to see how much social change expertise is in my neighborhood, and also the large number of local people interested in social change, even if they are new to it.
The documentary film they screened was awesome; it highlighted several successful grassroots social change projects done by people in Palo Alto and Sunnyvale.
I attended the sessions on successful local community changemakers, fundraising, and simple living. Met some interesting possible contacts and had good conversations. I brought a lot of flyers for the South Bay simple living group and other resources and brochures and ended up doing some impromptu tabling and getting almost a dozen new signups for the mailing list.
Note to self: the tabling was not so bad. People were genuinely interested (not surprising, considering the conference's target audience) - in fact, there a lot more interest than I expected, and I actually ran out of some materials. I should remember this positive experience the next time I am tempted to do my usual gutless "dump-and-run" style of tabling :) 2nd note to self: when tabling outdoors, bring paperweights in case there is a breeze! :o
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