Or maybe I should title it “I was groomed.”
It all stated at Hartford Pride. I was hanging out at the Connecticut Outreach Society’s (COS) tent and next to the tent was the tent for the Connecticut TransAdvoacy Coalition or CTAC and Jerimarie Liesegang, we were sitting next to the Connecticut River talking about activism and what legislation we needed to pass. I asked her a question. “How can I help?” she did say anything that I remember but every time I met her I asked “How can I help?”
One day I get an email, if you are still interested we are meeting at a bookstore, I don’t if you are still meeting but we are meeting at a bookstore just down from Trinity on New Britain Ave. It was something like “Behind The Rocks” and from that CTAC was born.
So I get another email in 2006… do you want to go to “Albany Trans Rights Conference” that is being given by National Center for Transgender Equality and by National Gay and Lesbian Task Force workshop on Grassroots Organizing. It was a really small conference… maybe 10 or 15 people. But I got to know them as friends; Mara Keisling from the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), Lisa Mottet from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Moonhawk River Stone, and Ethan St Pierre.
Next year, ring, ring. How would you like to go to Facilitator Training at the Voluntown Peace Trust? Sure. I got to see the bullet holes from when the Minute Men attacked the house.
No not those Minute Men (The story is amazing, you can read about it here and the news story here.) but the far-right-wing group in 1968, back them it was the New England Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA). One side of the building were the Minute Men and on the other side the FBI. To this day, the bullet holes are still.
That same year I went down to Long Island to the State University of New York College at Old Westbury NY to the Grassroots Organizing, New York Power Summit and it was organized once again by National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Lisa
So a number of years later I’m eating with Jerimarie, her wife, and two women from CWEALF (Now known as She Leads Justice.) and I said that I’m retiring what should I do next I asked. The answers came back get your MSW become a social worker. No, no, no… I am not a people person. They answered… No, no, no. Not all social workers are therapists, one said her concentration was in administration and the other’s was community organizing. Hmm…
I remember I got a flyer from UConn School of Social Work in the mail for COS (I was the head of COS at the time) so I enrolled. Not only did I get an education for free but I made a whole lot of friends who went on to become activists, one is a Vice President at Planned Partenthood.
Then it was… Lobbying Training – Connecticut Lobbying Conference, Betty Gallo & Company, Hartford CT and again the next year.
Yeah looking back I can see Jerimarie was grooming me for the Executive Director of CTAC.
I suggested doing thist for the next Executive Director but the Board shot it down.
Oh one last thing, at UConn back then students could take this for free, Campaign School, Nancy A. Humphreys Institute for Political Social Work now the students have to pay a nominal fee.
I think between the grooming and my job before I retired which allowed me to sit in some high level meetings like one one the head of the South Korea NRC and VP of companies like Toshiba and Westinghouse.
Groomed me for the ED of CTAC from 2013 to 2022.
It all stated at Hartford Pride. I was hanging out at the Connecticut Outreach Society’s (COS) tent and next to the tent was the tent for the Connecticut TransAdvoacy Coalition or CTAC and Jerimarie Liesegang, we were sitting next to the Connecticut River talking about activism and what legislation we needed to pass. I asked her a question. “How can I help?” she did say anything that I remember but every time I met her I asked “How can I help?”
One day I get an email, if you are still interested we are meeting at a bookstore, I don’t if you are still meeting but we are meeting at a bookstore just down from Trinity on New Britain Ave. It was something like “Behind The Rocks” and from that CTAC was born.
So I get another email in 2006… do you want to go to “Albany Trans Rights Conference” that is being given by National Center for Transgender Equality and by National Gay and Lesbian Task Force workshop on Grassroots Organizing. It was a really small conference… maybe 10 or 15 people. But I got to know them as friends; Mara Keisling from the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), Lisa Mottet from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Moonhawk River Stone, and Ethan St Pierre.
Next year, ring, ring. How would you like to go to Facilitator Training at the Voluntown Peace Trust? Sure. I got to see the bullet holes from when the Minute Men attacked the house.
No not those Minute Men (The story is amazing, you can read about it here and the news story here.) but the far-right-wing group in 1968, back them it was the New England Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA). One side of the building were the Minute Men and on the other side the FBI. To this day, the bullet holes are still.
That same year I went down to Long Island to the State University of New York College at Old Westbury NY to the Grassroots Organizing, New York Power Summit and it was organized once again by National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Lisa
So a number of years later I’m eating with Jerimarie, her wife, and two women from CWEALF (Now known as She Leads Justice.) and I said that I’m retiring what should I do next I asked. The answers came back get your MSW become a social worker. No, no, no… I am not a people person. They answered… No, no, no. Not all social workers are therapists, one said her concentration was in administration and the other’s was community organizing. Hmm…
I remember I got a flyer from UConn School of Social Work in the mail for COS (I was the head of COS at the time) so I enrolled. Not only did I get an education for free but I made a whole lot of friends who went on to become activists, one is a Vice President at Planned Partenthood.
Then it was… Lobbying Training – Connecticut Lobbying Conference, Betty Gallo & Company, Hartford CT and again the next year.
Yeah looking back I can see Jerimarie was grooming me for the Executive Director of CTAC.
I suggested doing thist for the next Executive Director but the Board shot it down.
Oh one last thing, at UConn back then students could take this for free, Campaign School, Nancy A. Humphreys Institute for Political Social Work now the students have to pay a nominal fee.
I think between the grooming and my job before I retired which allowed me to sit in some high level meetings like one one the head of the South Korea NRC and VP of companies like Toshiba and Westinghouse.
Groomed me for the ED of CTAC from 2013 to 2022.
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