20250318 STAND Newsletter – Newsletter launch

Dear STAND Together Community,

I hope that you have found some peace in the past week. I’ve been looking forward to writing you this note because I have a lot to share with you this week, including important information about our event coming up this Saturday (March 22nd). But first – an important update that I need you to read. This letter marks the launch of a weekly newsletter that STAND together will be assembling, which will always be led by a note from our leadership. We live in a moment where attention is at a premium, and I know you are spread thin. We have been conditioned to glance at an email subject line, get a sense of the content, and then click away to our newsfeeds – I am as guilty of that as anyone. But the thing we are doing here is big, and it requires more of us than a casual glance or a bookmark for a never-to-come later. I believe that we are building something important as a community, but in order to plan and act as a community, we need to be connected. So I will make a promise to you – I will do my absolute best to make sure that you have the information you need to help this movement thrive in a concise, and easy to reference format. In return, I need you to commit to spending 5 or 10 minutes a week reading what we have put together. Our ability to get information to you is critical if we are to succeed; please help me bridge that gap.

Communications

Our communications team has been hard at work building up a leadership group that will be contacting those of you that have indicated interest in the coming week. In the meantime, I am thrilled to announce the launch of BOTH a STAND together Facebook page and a Discord server. We will use those platforms to post announcements, but the Discord server will rapidly become an important way for you to get the information you need about upcoming events, general planning, or even just casually connecting with others in the movement. If you’ve never heard of Discord, that’s ok! One of the goals of the communications team is to put together materials so that everyone can get on the same page – be on the lookout. Also, if you have specific questions related to communications, we have established an email contact point at (no longer valid).

Team Leadership

As I wrote to you last week, STAND together consists of three semi-independent teams – Support, Communications, and Protest. All three need independent leadership, clear missions, and volunteers to do the work we all hope to do. A first step has been to make sure that leadership in each of these teams is identified, and that clear functions of each of those teams is laid out. We have spent a lot of time on this in the past two weeks, and I’m proud to say that leadership for both Support and Communications has now been established and begun to operate under their own structures. This may not seem like a big deal from the outside, but the building of these kinds of structures is what makes any organization sustainable and effective. We will reap the rewards of the enormous efforts that these leadership teams have put into getting their missions off of the ground. If you meet them, please say thank you!!

STAND together – March 22nd

We are gearing up to hold our March 22nd meeting, and we have some important information for you in making that event run smoothly, and also making best use of your time. First, while the event is going to run from 10am-1pm, and food will be available from 10am-11:30am, our ‘normal’ programming won’t begin until 11:30am with an address to the community. From 10:30am-11:30am, Josh will be providing a seminar on Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests which will become a critical tool in our communications activism arsenal. We invite you to join us, and all are welcome and encouraged, but if you have no interest in that sort of activism there is no requirement to attend! If you are new to our community, aren’t sure yet how you want to engage, or simply aren’t interested in FOIA requests, you are more than welcome to arrive later. 

Secondly, as we did last time we met, we will have childcare available! However, if you plan to take advantage of that childcare, please email stand(at)ndumc(dot)org and let us know that you are coming. Making sure that your children are safe is our number one priority, so please help us know how many to expect. On a similar note, once in childcare, kids will no longer have access to the food provided at the event, so please plan to have them eat with you before dropping them off.

Lastly, perhaps most importantly, this whole movement is designed around the care and support of our neighbors. For those of you who attended our first event, I asked you what values you hold that you would be willing to be made uncomfortable to defend. It is sometimes uncomfortable to reach out to those in need and offer support. Please stop for a moment and think about who in your life could use a community that embraces them for the person that they are, and is willing to STAND together with them. Please find it in yourself to extend a hand in friendship, and bring them on Saturday. If our movement stays grounded in our basic principle, that all people have value, and that value demands respect, dignity, and support, then we will thrive. We look forward to welcoming you all on Saturday.

STANDing together with you,

Matt