by Suzi Grishpul

The pilot run of Power Up Your Org!, a workshop series for student organizers, was a tremendous success. It consisted of two sessions: the first on strategies and online tools for managing group projects, the second on developing a communications strategy and attractive publicity materials. Natasha Collins, Gail Chadwin, and I developed the curriculum for the workshop, augmenting it with input from a survey of student organizers on what topics they would be interested in covering. The goal of these workshops was twofold; we wanted to create a space for students to share and discuss heir work, as well as conduct a hands-on training in a few simple and effective tools that address the issues identified by fellow student organizers. We ourselves use these tools in organizing GIIP, and have kept ourselves quite sane in doing so.