START Study/Action Course

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

From: Randy Schutt <rschutt at vernalproject.org>

Dear Community Organizing folks,
For the past two years, a small group of us have been working to
produce a study/action course called START (Study, Think, Act,
Respond Together) oriented towards new, progressive activists in the
United States.

This course is based on a popular, earlier program, the
"Macro-Analysis Seminars" developed in the early 1970s. Using a study
guide that fostered critical thinking and egalitarian participation,
people met in their own homes, read carefully-selected articles and
books together, and engaged with the implications of what they were
reading to work for positive, nonviolent societal change.
Participants in these study seminars became key activists in many
movements for change including the safe energy movement, the
anti-nuclear weapons movement, and the fair trade movement.

We have now updated these materials and placed them on the web for
free download, thus making it easy for anyone in the United States
(and the world) to conduct a 24-session study/action course. All of
the reading materials are freely accessible articles on the web.
Through the START course, participants can quickly learn about a
variety of interrelated problems facing society and promising
positive approaches to solving them. At the same time, they can learn
important skills for working cooperatively with other activists to
bring about change consistent with progressive values of democracy,
cooperation, freedom, social and economic justice, and peaceful
resolution of conflict.

Note that using the materials costs nothing and there are no
advertisements or other commercial activity associated with these
materials. We have created these materials solely to make it easy for
new activists to learn about progressive issues and to become
empowered to bring about progressive social change. The current START
Project is not affiliated with any organization -- it is simply a
labor of love to support progressive change.

Like the earlier Macro-Analysis Seminar materials, you are welcome to
adapt these materials in whatever way you wish. We would also
appreciate it if you would let your colleagues, friends, and local
activists know about this program. We have no budget for publicity so
we are relying on word of mouth to let people know about it.

START
Home Page   http://www.startguide.org
Study Guide  http://www.startguide.org/guide/g00.html
Reading List http://www.startguide.org/read/r00.html
About Us      http://www.startguide.org/about/people.html

The START reading list is complete, but still needs some polishing.
We still need to write study questions for each session and edit some
of the descriptions of the readings. Some of the reading sets are
still a bit short (we have tried to make each one be about 50 pages
long -- at 250 words/page) and some of the readings could be replaced
by better ones. We would appreciate any suggestions you have for
additional or stronger reading materials. The criteria we used for
the readings is described in detail in  Chapter 7 of the Study Guide:
http://www.startguide.org/guide/g7.html
and the format for the readings as well as other suggested readings
are shown on this page: http://www.startguide.org/poss/r00.html

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Randy Schutt  and Pamela Haines
start at startguide.org