SPARKS – Final Week

Since my last spark was related to connecting to an old student, I thought about another student of mine that I had. When I was a teacher he said to me, “When I get older, I want to work for you some day.” Now, I don’t know about you, but for me those were awfully heavy words. Ever since I moved on from his school, his words continue to come back to me. They are a check on my life. They make me ask myself “Am I doing the kind of work that he saw me doing before, the kind of work that would make him still want to work with me?”

At the same time I was having those thoughts last spring, two things happened. First, I have been encouraged by a few people to restart the international summer service trip program, but this time as an independent non-profit. It’s a fine idea, but it’s really hard to do outside of a school. Much easier to start it as a programme within a school as a teacher. But I was also leading a SPARKS group and I knew the power of positive risks and wanted to practice what I was preaching. So I thought, I should make a positive step toward restarting the programme. I contacted all the current teachers I knew to see if they would like to do the programme. But beyond that I asked myself what more could I do which would make my actions risky? Then I asked what do people value most? Money.

The second thing that happened is that the student I mentioned actually contacted me that spring of his junior year. He now was wondering if he could come and work for me for the summer since he hadn’t found anything else. Gulp. I told him some of the stuff I was working on and he said he was in. I couldn’t believe it. So I took a positive risk and paid him for a summer internship to work for me. And I didn’t pay pittance; I paid him well (I asked another former student and former trip participant what she was getting in her DC internship and paid that amount). I also gave him 20% free creative time just like I am supposed to get at work. And all he had to do was work from his computer and phone for me for 3 months.

The main task I gave was a creative one. Yes, he had to contact NGO workers around the world to see who would host a group for the summer next year, and yes he had to contact schools, but I had a bigger question: how do you transition the non-profit to a social enterprise for-profit-based model? I needed an idea, and I needed a good one. I even gave him a book to read about social entrepreneurship. He did a good job for me. He contacted schools and got a list of global NGO volunteers and workers who were interested. He was unable to come up with an idea.

This is why the Italy trip was so amazing for me. It was exactly one year from the summer of 2011 when his internship happened, but I had an idea—a SPARK if you will. And I saw a viable, connected, related profit-based business to help support the international summer service project. It was important to me because you could always come up with an unrelated business that just gives profit to your non-profit or towards your social aims. But I was hoping the actual business would be intricately related to the social aims.

Unfortunately, due to a lot of unforeseen circumstances I may not have the manpower to enact it, and the people I want to work directly on it are not available. So I’m currently thinking things through, and we’ll see what happens. But all of this is to say that the insight would not have happened, yes, without the trip to Italy, but also without having taken the risk to hire my intern and start thinking about possible ideas. Taking a first committed and risky step is very important to get you in the direction you want to go.

SPARKS – Week 4

I’ve been mulling over the idea of running a citywide Sparks group in London. For those of you who don’t remember, Sparks is a fun project/program in which a group of people meet for 5 weeks and each person must decide take one positive risk in the next 7 days to make herself a better person or the world a better place. Each week, we meet and share how our Sparks went, and we share our plans for next week’s Sparks. Over the years, I have had a number of people who click very well with me allowing us to produce excellent events and projects. Andy is one of them. His job is Visual Storyteller (I think other work places would call him a videographer or video designer). I asked Andy if he would like to do a DC-London Sparks group using videoconferencing screens and rooms and pairing each person with a trans-Atlantic Sparks buddy during the week. Sadly, Andy was too busy but I may still start a Sparks group in London. I’m toying with the idea and trying to gather enough support to help run the event.

That’s when I remember that it’s not an event; it’s a group of people learning to take risks together. And it doesn’t have to be a big production, it can be something as simple as people coming together and learning what it means to be human in a community that encourages growth. So, as I’m writing, I’m rethinking my worries and may just do it. In the meantime, I realize I never finished sharing my risks from the last time I did Sparks.

In week one, we had an introduction to Sparks. In week two, I took a homeless man out to dinner and we talked and laughed and found moments where we escaped the identities of rich, housed man and poor, homeless men; we were just two guys talking about women. In week three, Mike (the guy I met in week two) encouraged me to contact and talk to my former wife since I wanted to be like Mike who harboured no ill-will at all for his wife cheating on him with his best friend and for leaving him afterward. So nothing like that was done to me, I contacted my former wife, though it was hard, and let her know I begrudge nothing and resent not. Since I wanted my Sparks to tell a story, I decided that in week 4, I would fulfill a request of my former wife.

She had a student of whom I am fond. I’ll call her Sarai. Sarai was one of the students who did an international summer service trip with me, and she is exactly the type of student you want: she over-fund-raised so she gave extra funds that she continued to raise to the accounts of other students; she came up with ideas for fund-raisers on her own; she worked hard overseas and never complained even when bitten or sick; she learned a basic amount of the language needed and tried to use it; she gave her all to ever task we asked. Sarai was the valedictorian of her school. And as with many innovative movements that become institutionalized, our school, YES, wanted her to be another shining example of success. So Sarai graduated and went off to study at a university on the east coast. However, when she arrived, that click, that moment when you begin to feel at home at university never happened. It never came for Sarai. Sarai pushed through; she knew YES was counting on her as well as her parents and teachers and friends. She joined social groups, she pushed herself into her studies, she met with a counselor there. All of her efforts didn’t change how she felt: she was unhappy. She was homesick. She missed her family, friends, and church, and she was not happy in this school. She didn’t really click with other students though she did have a few friends. I’m not sure if it was too much for her at once, the feeling of too much pressure, or because Sarai is a special girl and the university had few people that fit with her personality. I don’t know. I just knew she was unhappy. She finally made the very tough decision to withdraw and go back home.

Before she could call and tell her high school, her university had already called her high school. This was hard for her because she wanted to be the one to tell her high school. She had a scholarship from a joint program between her high school, YES, and her university. Now she would lose that money. And when she finally did talk to YES, the YES administration was . . . let’s say they were livid. At this really hard time for her, I think what she needed was care and acceptance. Instead what she felt was disdain, shock, slight contempt, and disappointment. I was confused when I heard about it. I thought, “Nooo, how could trained teachers and counselors and school administrators act that way and place the institution above the person. That’s silly.” But she even described going to a YES sports game and being ignored by a few teachers because of her decision to withdraw. It really was hard for her. I know. When I spoke to her on the phone, she cried and cried as she told me about it.

So I decided my Spark this week was to go and visit with her and take her out to breakfast and to show her nothing but love from a (former) YES teacher—me. I told her I promised to fly in to Texas whenever she wanted; we would pick a date and do that. That made her very happy. I did fly in but we were unable to meet due to schedules and missed phone calls, but we did talk on the phone. And it was really good for her, at least I think so. I just spent the entire phone call listening to her story, hearing her cry, and telling her who she is. She is an amazingly gifted and persistently good young woman, and I needed to remind her of that. I was so happy to hear that her family completely and unconditionally accepted her decision and took her back. And now she is enrolled at the University of Houston and doing well and happy. Even though we have talked a number of times since then, she still has the promise of being taken out to breakfast. I’m looking forward to it.

DC SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Some of you know I was reluctant to leave DC. This was due to the fact that I was helping to launch 3 initiatives with my partner Andy. I wanted to describe a bit of the three initiatives because I am now looking for someone to hire to carry them on.

First, within faith communities I became tired of the false dichotomy between secular and sacred. One manifestation of that is that many churches will spot out someone they think has “talent” or “spiritual” talent and ask them to help serve in a ministry. If they think the person is doing well, they ask them to help lead a ministry or program. If they think they are really impacting, they then invite them on staff because implicitly they are saying that’s where the impact is. But there is no understanding or recognition of the fact that if someone is good or doing good work, maybe they should continue working outside the church. This is exemplified in the fact that churches often expend financial resources and human resources (releasing part of their congregation) to go and plant another church elsewhere, a church that will be led by someone that is identified as a rising star or an impactful person within the parent church. At Redeemer Church in New York City, a group of church goers complained to Pastor Tim Keller and said it’s not fair how church members get all that money and are supported financial for a year or so to do a church plant, but if a church member wants to open a restaurant that employs ex-cons or start an orphanage or establish an urban garden they receive no funds. I don’t credit Pastor Keller and his staff for coming up with the idea, but I do credit them with being amenable to the suggestion and creating the Faith and Work Center. Part of the Faith and Work Center is an Entrepreneurship Initiative that holds a competition to award a grant to one for-profit, one non-profit, and one arts venture being started by a church member.


Andy and I wanted to do something similar in our church community. Imagine it. We had a sermon series called “All In” about being totally committed to the cause. Can you believe that other that 2 examples, every other example used throughout the sermon series was an example of a church clergy member or a missionary? And the two non-clergy examples were extremely wealthy people. The implicit message is that if you are going to be all-in, you need to work for the church or be rich. What we need are churches that have an understanding of the Divine everywhere in the every-day alongside every person. We need churches that see the sacred in extra-church work not just church work or parachurch work. We need to break the sacred-secular divide.

So we started two things. We started a quarterly event in which we came together to discuss such issues. Our first was in September 2011. We had a church member discuss this very issue as it is the topic of a book she is writing. She talked about the examples in the “All-In” series, and she spoke about growing up in church and only being taught how to be a good Christian wife or a good Christian mother. She was neither of those and often questioned “Does my faith have no relevance to my situation as a single businesswoman in the work place or to my job?” It was a good event. And we broke u pinto small groups based on different sectors—military government, non-military government, arts, non-profit, for-profit, other. We plan to do one every quarter, break into small groups, and those groups continue throughout the quarter inviting people to meet to talk about the work they do in the world and the relevance their faith has on such work. (I was not worried about this continuing without me. I knew, if I took the London job, it would be fine and continue.)

Second, we realised there was a need for seed funding for social entrepreneurs in our community. This need felt especially poignant when we considered all the people who took part in our second SPARKS series (hope you followed that series in the updates). We had 100 people in our group, and 30 regulars at the meeting; all were asking “What Next?” They felt empowered to challenge themselves weekly to take new positive timely risks, but what seemed most natural was to come together to do a communal risk for the community and city. So Andy and I began plans to create a community of people who came together and pooled their resources to solve problems local and endemic to D.C.

A good example of this is Plywood People. Plywood People is run by a friend named Jeff, an Atlanta social entrepreneur. Jeff doesn’t convene people in the same way we want to do; he convenes people who are already social entrepreneurs or who are working on ideas to talk and share and network and meet. But let me give you an example of the power of this and what Jeff has done. Jeff and his group were trying to figure out what to do about the refugee situation in the States and in their community. It was hard for refugees to find a viable livelihood and provide for their families. During that time, he was driving and noticed the billboards along the roads. He wondered what they did with billboard paper when the ad was over. He called and asked. They said they threw it away. He asked if he could have it to reuse. They told him yes. Since most billboards are owned by a few companies it wasn’t hard to get the billboard paper from other billboards. Jeff started an organization, subsequently, that employees refugee women to make bags from recycled paper. When Andy and I visited Jeff and his organization in August 2011, they had 10 women working for Billboard Bags and 2 women had already transitioned from Billboard bags to other jobs. Plywood people intends to be an incubating group that continues to launch further initiatives like Gift Card Giver.


So Andy and I set out to do the same thing, but the end of my fellowship and a London offer seemed to be complicating things. So I have been looking for someone to work for me and with Andy in DC to carry on the work. Because this was in the initial stages when I left, it has stalled somewhat, and I would love for someone to continue the work.

Third, and most importantly, Andy and I decided to start our own social enterprise/entrepreneurship incubator. We wanted to start something in between Redeemer Church’s Faith and Work Center’s Entrepreneurship Initiative (that hold an annual competition to give a small grant to one arts, one non-profit, and one for-profit venture from among church members) and the Awesome Project (that gets 10 investors to give $100/month for 1 year in order to offer monthly $1,000 cash prizes to the best idea that month to use the money). Instead of monthly prizes or yearly prizes we would do quarterly prizes. We would also have investors, some who give $100/month for 1 year, some who give more like $200/month. And we asked our church to be a much larger investor in the program (on the order of thousands per month). With this money we plan to offer prize ever quarter and to work on business plans with the finalist and provide mentoring.

The incubator had a second part. We also plan to open up a for-profit business, a shared workspace. If you were running start-up and preferred not to work from home or a coffeehouse, you could rent shared workspace from us for any number of hours a day and any number of days a week. You might also come to us if you had a small company (for instance 2 employees) and it was cheaper to rent shared workspace from us than to rent permanent office space. Social entrepreneurs would benefit from networking with other social entrepreneurs who used the space and they could speak with Andy and me for mentoring help. We would also offer workshops both to renters and outside people on topics such as “starting a business,” “creating a business plan,” “forming a board,” “creating a social pitch,” “finding seed funding,” etc.

This was in the initial stages though Andy and I had found a potential location. The initial location didn’t work (physically it was not the right size), so we were on the hunt for a better space, and then I had an offer and left to London. So I’m currently looking for someone to carry on this oh so important work in DC for me.

Additionally, I hired an intern this past summer 2011, one of my former students, to help do preparatory work in restarting the programme that sends high school kids abroad to do international summer service work for 1-2 months. We were restating it as its own stand-alone organisation. Both Houston schools and one D.C. school pulled out of the program and didn’t end up going on the trip for the summer of 2011, so my intern was helping to prep work for schools to go in the summer of 2012. We now have one school signed up to go but they will go in the summer of 2013. Many thanks to Audrey McKim who is doing hard work on the ground in Houston while I’m off doing other projects. If you would like to help or to take over any of the above 3 projects or this international summer service programme, please let me know. Thanks!

SPARKS - Week 3

Week 3

Well, if you’ve been following along the SPARKS challenge, you’ll know at this point I was at week 3. And since I wanted all my SPARKS to have a trajectory where one risk leads to the next one, I looked at what I learned from Mike, the man I met and with whom I had a meal. Mike inspired me with his lack of anger or bitterness or even sadness with his ex-wife who cheated on him with his best friend while he was trucking along the east coast, doing his job. So I decided that I wanted to work on myself and have a healthier state after my last relationship.

I’ve always been a person who loved without desiring love, but it was very important to one woman I dated to desire love (and it’s natural). So I did. But desires create attachment and produce suffering. Though I don’t fully understand what happened, it ended, and I was ok because if you love someone you let them be happy with or without you. Then I was told I didn’t love because I wasn’t miserable. Then I became miserable. Then I was told get a grip it’s just a person. Interesting.

Regardless, I’m used to practicing detachment to things, and listening to Mike I was amazed at his detachment. After talking to Mike I spoke to a friend and she reminded me what love does. She said she learned to “be love and not desire it.” And that was it. The moment I heard that and did it (that very day), the burden of weighty emotion began to subside immediately. My only job was not what was done to me or how but to be love as it always was, as it was when I continually offered to put the person’s happiness before my desire to be in relationship. So I took a risk, not really wanting to communicate; I took a risk and communicated by phone, email, and Skype and let the person know that I begrudge nothing, resent not. My total goal is to be love and if you’re happy and healthy away from me, without me, and apart from me then that’s great. It makes me happy that this person finally found that wherever or with whomever it was. It’s good to communicate such things, better yet to live them.

SPARKS

Week 2

Each week I hold a community dinner. Now, many weeks it doesn’t happen which my roommate points out. But what he misses is that it’s not important how it ends (we encourage risk and celebrate in failure) or if people decide to come, rather it’s important to try. And I do try. However, I’ve been bothered more and more by the words of a particular Jewish man who lived during the Greco-Roman empire. And those words encourage people to throw a party (dinner party or banquet) for people who cannot pay you back. Now I’ve had trouble understanding this man as I’ve learned to take some of his literal words figuratively and some of his figurative language literally. Currently, I think this was one of the ones you actually could take quite literally (and learn figurative things in the process). Throwing a party for people reminds me of our culture, where it’s (not) really love to give to someone whose will first feel obligated to return it and will then repay it. Giving with the expectation of return. But can you give when there will be no direct or tangible or visible return because the receiver is incapacitated?

Well, I was challenged. After all, I hold a weekly community dinner. Though it doesn’t happen every week due to cancelations or scheduling, I sure do cook and host a lot of friends who ask to bring food or wine, who try to take me out to dinner, who actually try to give me money for the meal, and who invite me over to return the favor. Why wasn’t I hosting and cooking for people on the street? Now, if I had a place where I had full reign I could easily do that. But I don’t live alone and have to be respectful of everyone’s comfort. So in place of doing my first choice, I decided my spark for the week would be to take a homeless person out to dinner.

What is different than what I normally do is that I would not just buy them food and give it to them (where is the love in that? You can do all kinds of good, humanitarian, beneficial things without love). No, I would take them out to dinner, that means we would share bread and, in the process, lives. We would actually relate. Now in my experience and work, homeless people are most starved of relationship, more than food or clothing or shelter. And it’s this I wanted to give over a meal. I would invite a homeless person in a restaurant (in times past, friends I’ve met on the street don’t want to come into a restaurant due to embarrassment) and we would sit and share our stories. So that’s what I did.

I knew exactly where I was going and who I would take to dinner—this particular man who has an engaging theatrical voice when asking people to buy the DC newspaper that helps the homeless. On my way there, I saw another homeless man begging, and I knew I had to stop. This man’s name is Mike Venables. Mike begs outside the subway stop at my building. I asked him if he wanted to get some food. He said sure. The closest place was Quiznos which he chose. I would later find out he went there a lot. So we went in and we ordered food in line. Mike is a boisterous character and doesn’t worry about politeness when ordering his food, sometimes feeling like the workers cheat him out of enough lettuce, tomatoes, or meat. So Mike always asks for more. I don’t think the workers are supposed to do that, but they did it today as Mike said “Put some more pickles on that. Come on!” It makes me laugh even now.

After we got to the end of the line and our toasted sandwiches were handed to us, I paid and asked Mike if I could join him and have dinner with him. He said sure. He was surprised, but he welcomed it. And we sat down and began to eat and talk. We sat the “man” way, side-by-side on a long bar-table with stools facing the window.

We talked and listened. Well, mostly he talked, and I listened. And most of the conversation was that way. I was trying to engage in a bit of performance art if you’ll allow me to reappropriate the term. You see, Mike and I come from two different backgrounds, socioeconomic levels, regions, and education levels. And in relating to him I was hoping that for an hour we could wash that away as if those differences didn’t exist. But I was very aware while talking that he was a homeless man with very little money and no family and I was a rich man who bought him a meal.

Then something strange happened. Mike had finished telling me about his plight on the streets, and I asked about his family. He spoke about his mother in the hospital. But the strange thing is his response to my question about siblings. He said he had one brother in the DC area. And his brother is a pastor.

“If he’s a pastor I don’t want no part of any of that God stuff.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“I see what kind of pastor he is. I seen him when he was in seminary studying to get his degree, all the stuff he was doing with women.”

“Oh, you mean he was doing questionable things?”

“Puuuleeease. That guy ain’t no man of God. If you a man of God, ain’t you supposed to lay hands on men and women?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Then why does he only lay hands on women?” We both laughed.

“Really?”

“I mean, I went to one of his “bible studies,” I was the ONLY man in there!” We both laughed more.

“He has a ministry to the women, and I’ve seen what he does with them. Always trying to show them the power of God and God’s thunder.” Laughing, “I don’t want no part in that.”

It was strange, but that was the first time we had laughed while talking, and when we laughed it was as if the flood gates were opened, the draw bridge lifted, and the temperature relaxed. We laughed and laughed.

“I mean all he wants to show women is the power of God.” We laughed more. “God’s thunder.”

We laughed. And it was in the moment of laughing that I felt us become two men. We actually seemed to float from the restaurant, the two stools, the food. We left the labels given to us by the world and each other. We left it all. And we were just two people sharing a joke.

And then it happened once more in a deeper way. After telling me the story of his brother who doesn’t want to have anything to do with him, he mentioned an ex-wife.

“Yeah, you see I would drive trucks and so I would be on the road a lot going up the east coast. And she was back there in Florida. I guess she got bored or tired or something. But she found another man and cheated on me while I was away trying to help provide.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you still upset? When did this happen?”

“This happened last year. But it’s cool. People can do what they want. She’s a grown woman. The strange thing is that she cheated on me with a friend of mine. Out of ALL the guys she could have chosen, she chose my best friend. Now does that make any sense?”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“So then you’ve been very angry.”

“Naw, I’m not angry.”

“What? Not even a little bit.”

“Naw, she’s a grown woman. She can do what she wants to do. Why she had to choose my best friend, I don’t know. But she can make her own decisions. We just got a divorce. I wasn’t mad one bit, not one bit, not even once. Why am I gonna be mad at her? What do I have to be mad at her about?”

Now it was in this moment that the conversation took a turn because I had a recent break-up at the time, and not only did I not understand what had happened due to seemingly contradictory messages or inadequate (perhaps only for my brain and mind) explanations, but I had a lot of people accusing me of not doing the right thing or doing the wrong thing. And at the time I had visceral moments of anger which I tempered or eliminated immediately by quickly counting the blessings from the relationship and putting myself in the other person’s shoes. But it would come back again later and I would counteract it again.

What was amazing to me was that this man was claiming he felt no anger and was never upset after someone willingly broke a vow and decided not to hold on to the commitment they had. I wanted to know his secret. The reason the topic changed the conversation is that I was mostly listening or asking questions, and he was happy to talk. But now I wanted to know . . . I wanted to know what he thought or if. . . if he had any advice or . . . help . . . .

“You know I had a recent break up where I was left. . .”

And I told a very short version of some story to say I’ve been there. And he listened. And he shared why he wasn’t mad and I listened, and it was in this moment, we stopped being rich man who buys a meal and poor man who eats it. We were two guys who had similar experiences or feelings of being left. . . .where one was showing how a new way is possible, a way without anger. We were just two brothers sharing life together. And that’s when I learned it is possible to ignore class and levels in a moment. One of my purposes in life is to extend those moments as long as I can with as many people I can starting with the outcast, the marginalized, the minimized, and the oppressed. Thanks, Mike.

SPARKS

Week 1

In January 2011, I took part in a social and interpersonal experiment which I immensely enjoyed. One reason I was delaying my next letter is because I wanted to be able to update you about SPARKS and then continue to tell you about it when we continue in May 2011 without breaking the email cycle. That’s right; I’m leading a session of Sparks in DC with hopefully about 50 people. But I want to tell you about it now and how it went in January. Here is the letter we sent out:

Dear Friend:

Hey, this is Victor.
2011 is upon us. I want to share with you an event taking place January 11 through February 1 (Tuesdays @ 7 pm about 2 blocks from Union Station). For full details check out this blog post about the Spark Series in DC. I invite you to join me, or forward to anyone in your network who might be interested!

January is always especially full of possibilities – a chance to reset our priorities. But the rest of the year can often feel like a graveyard of good intentions that petered out back in February. This year I’m starting out with a bang – or perhaps I should say SPARK. And – if you live in Washington, D.C. – I invite you to join me.



For four weeks in January and February, I’m attending a SPARK series organized by my friend Andy Pisciotti. The series will help each person focus on this one question: What’s one thing I can do this week to make the world a better place, or myself a better person?

It can be in any area of life that you want…finance, health, romance, family, friends, spiritual, social justice, recreation/hobbies, etc. It doesn’t matter how big or small it is; all that matters is that you take a risk.

You’ll come up with an answer to that question, then we’ll come back the following week to share stories about how it went. We’ll repeat the process for a few weeks. It’ll be a great way to add some initiative to 2011, and it’s another excuse for a laid back evening with friends and food.

First, watch the 1-minute promo from SPARKgood.

Spark Promo from Spark Good Studios on Vimeo.

We’ll meet on Tuesday nights (January 11 through February 1) at 7 pm. Bring yourself. Bring friends. Bring some goals you’ve just been itching to get around to. I think you’ll find the atmosphere encouraging, inspiring and practical, too.
Contact me or Andy if you want the full details. How about starting your new year with a SPARK? Then, see it blossom in 2011.


During week 1, we just met. We had a total of about 8-10 people. In the first meeting, the concept was explained and we were given spark-generators, some worksheets that contained ideas about potential sparks (reconnecting with an estranged friend of 15 years, pursuing the man/woman of your dreams, building a home for someone in need, etc.). We ate food, talked, and discussed ideas. At the end we all shared what we thought we might do during the week. Because I have weekly communal dinners, I was hoping to open up my home to the homeless and invite them in for dinner, but because I don’t live alone, there are problems with that. So I decided what I wanted to do was to take a homeless person out to dinner. Now, I’ve taken homeless people out for a meal, but I normally have left after they receive their food. This time, I wanted to engage with them not prior to purchasing the meal and a bit afterward, but to sit down with him or her and spend time breaking bread and sharing lives. Next week, we’ll see how it went.

I’ve decided to start a new series in these email updates. Each week, I’ll tell you what happened in the subsequent week of SPARKS for me (I can only talk about me). It was an exciting time, and I quite enjoyed it. When it was over I didn’t want it to end.

Overall, it went well, though we had a few challenges about people wanting bigger and better things, about people risking bigger things. The problem was sometimes they didn’t, or they went for something that was easy instead of challenging, something that takes longer than a week instead of what could be done in a week, or something that wasn’t in their control, perhaps. So we’ll be doing it better, and we’ll do it again in May, and my friend Andy asked me to help co-lead. I’m really looking forward to it!!! VERY exciting!!