Y'ALL LEMME TALK TO YOU ABOUT IDEA GUYS. Because I'm not gonna lie to you, they are almost always dudes. When I was in DSA, these dudes considered having ideas their contribution to the work. Taking notes, making contact with people, talking to venues, setting up, cleaning up? https://twitter.com/KateElliottSFF/status/1253031178442952705

All that actual scut work, which is not the fun and exciting part of organizing, got done by other people.

It is why I am a big fan of meetings and setting up goddamned rotations for the not fun scut work.

If you leave the no fun scut work as a matter of volunteering it will perpetually get done by the three actual adults in the room who realize this is how things happen. Two of those people will be women of color, guaranteed, if there are any in the org.

And then your three actual adults in the room will burn the fuck out from being constantly expected to make the dreams of the Idea Guys real and they will leave and your org will flounder and you will wonder what the fuck just happened.

I am spending a lot of time right now thinking about communities I've been and am part of and what they've done well and what they haven't. And I gotta tell you, the military approach of "here are the sucky chores and here is the schedule on which everyone does them" is good.

Like... Everybody hates that one chore! Which means that it is time to make an explicit schedule to make sure everyone in your org/community does it.

You will wash out a lot of idea guys with this I suspect. They will sob pitifully because they "don't know how" to take notes or put away the chairs or whatever. So you teach em.