The RFC has begun the final lap of our 20/20/20 marathon. In September 2009 in Albany, NY, we held the first reception of our project to stage 20 events, in 20 cities, over 20 months to celebrate our 20th anniversary. We (usually me and my daughter Jenn, who will take over my duties as Executive Director in a couple of years) have met, thanked and discussed the RFC endeavor with a couple of thousand supporters and new friends since then.
In fact we’ve exceeded our goal by holding 21 events so far, and we’re not finished yet. Originally we planned to conclude marking this milestone with a reception in Boston in May. That month will be, after all, the 20th since we commenced. However, we’re also going to hold more parties in June, because we couldn’t fit all the places we wanted to visit within a 20-month time frame. In any case we really are approaching the finish line.
Event number 22, in Boulder, CO on Saturday, April 16th is up next. That will be followed by what was to be the original wrap-up reception in Boston at Jamaica Plain Co-housing on Saturday, May 21st. Two weeks later, on Sunday, June 5th, Jenn and I will be speaking at a house party in Hartford, CT. Then we’ll close out the program with a reception in Albuquerque, NM and a public event in Santa Fe on June 11th and 12th respectively. So instead of a 20-month-long string of 20, we will have held 26 events over a 21-month period.
I admit to being a bit winded by all of this running around. Still, since the RFC has a national scope and our activist orientation compels us to interact personally with our community, we must hit the road. Holding a relatively large number of modest-size events takes a lot more effort than staging a couple of big ones. It may seem less efficient to do what we’ve done, but at the same time, we get to exchange ideas with many more people in the process. Major productions, no matter how good they are, consist almost entirely of those on stage speaking to an audience. At all our 20/20/20 events those working full-time for the RFC have engaged in significant give and take with our supporters. We gain so much from this process and those we talk with can have a real impact on our program.
So what comes next? Even though we’ve been to a lot of places, we’ve missed a few. We were unable to hold events in Madison, WI; Portland, OR; or Santa Cruz, CA to name a few. We hope to visit them all in the fall. We’ll slacken the pace a bit now that our 20th anniversary is behind us, but we pledge to continue our best efforts to personally network with as many of you as possible for the remainder of 2011 and beyond.
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