Overall, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed with how my return to the field went. I was amped up about this one; I never shy away from the opportunity to do a full-group pitch followed by a round of questions. Even practiced my pitch on the drive up by myself. But it just sort of fell flat, and when I opened the floor up to questions, the Chapter Chair sort of…reclaimed his time and repurposed that into UTLA-related questions, which a few people had and then everyone dispersed.
Ultimately, I got two new members, a handful of sign-ins, and Jaime collected two postcards while we were there (with a commitment to collect 8 more). The most fruitful conversation I had was actually well after the first group of teachers left and a few non-teaching UTLA members came in. I chatted with a guy named Christopher C – he’s an attendance counselor. Seems like a good guy with aligned principles, though I didn’t quite have the time to agitate him as I would have wanted to.
I told him I’d follow up with him and when I do, I’ll loop in Cristina! Cristina we can chat in your next check-in about follow-up with the rest of the folks. Jaime’s take is that they’re just so disengaged with the union that it’s tough to get them riled up about ANYTHING, but he assured me that we can get people to come around.