Scheduled event at _____ Church

 An event has been scheduled for December __, 2023 at the _____ Church.

Outreach to Birmingham YouthServe organization

Outreach is being made to the Birmingham YouthServe organization, website: https://youthservebham.org/

Below is description of YouthServe, copied and pasted from its website.

YouthServe origins date back to the mid-1990s in Birmingham with two organizations, First Look and Birmingham Youth Service Corps, who merged to become YouthServe in 2004.  Since then, it has become the premier organization for diverse groups of youth to experience civic engagement together and express community leadership in the here and now.  

Alabama Young Democrats; Alabama Young Republicans

Alabama State Coordinator Theo Brown has contacted the Alabama Young Democrats organization and the Alabama Young Republicans organization for the purpose having a Braver Angels event involving those organizations.

Recap of August 2 meeting

 From: Steve Whitaker <swhitaker@braverangels.org>

To: Theo Brown <tbrown@braverangels.org>

Sent: Thursday, August 3, 2023 at 08:42:09 AM CDT

Subject: Recap of the August Birmingham Area Braver Angels meeting

Hello, everyone!

Thanks to everyone who made the Birmingham Area Braver Angel’s alliance meeting last Wednesday. We covered a lot of ground in just our second meeting, ever. We are still getting some of the rough spots polished but I think the meeting went quite well and I was excited to see all of the attendees (of course, I expect to see more of you at the next meeting). Below are a few highlights from the meeting:

Two of our members, Sean and Mark, gave us a recap of everything they saw and heard at the National Convention in Gettysburg. I would encourage everyone to use the YouTube link at the bottom of this recap to see some of the events hosted at the convention, as well as other great content put out by Braver Angels.

Sean gave us a good overview of the new initiative announced at the National Convention, Rise for America. This is an exciting new initiative in which the national organization would like to see everyone participate. In short it consists of participating in one or more of the following:

1. Host a Documentary Party

2. Attend and Amplify a Braver Angels Workshop

3. Coordinate a Braver Angels Ambassador-led Presentation

4. Train to be a Debate Chair

5. Create your own Event or Action Step

As a local Alliance, we’ll be putting a lot of energy into seeing how we can meet the Rise for America call!

Mark led us through a skills training session on active listening. We hope to include a skills training session in all of our meetings going forward. We all need to be able to “walk the talk”, and skills training is the foundation for that.

We discussed the roles we are hoping to continue filling locally so that we can get become more active in bringing Brave Angels activities to the Birmingham area. It will be critical to grow the pool of people in our area who can serve as Ambassadors, Moderators and Debate facilitators.

Speaking of critical needs, we also touched on the fact that our Blue Chair, Barbara, had to step down for personal reasons. Our State Coordinator is working hard to help us find a new Blue Co-chair. Braver Angels believes in always maintaining a Red-Blue balance, so this is probably the most important immediate need.

We spent a few minutes covering some other immediate priorities for our local Alliance:

1. Continuing to grow our local alliance.

2. Developing a set of workshops focused on bringing the critical skills promoted by Braver Angles to local high schools.

We will let everyone know when we schedule our next event. Until that time, here are some great resources to look over:

Braver Angels official website: https://braverangels.org

Become a member: https://braverangels.org/get-involved/#become-member

Free skills training (online): https://braverangels.org/what-we-do/take-an-ecourse/

Braver Angels YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BraverAngels

Braver Angels Rise for America: https://braverangels.org/rise/

I hope everyone takes time to look at the materials made available by Braver Angels, and I hope to see even more of you at our next gathering,

Steven Whitaker

Braver Angels Birmingham Area Red Co-chair

Feb. 20, 2023 announcement of formation of Braver Angels Birmingham Alliance

 From: Theo Brown <tbrown@braverangels.org>

Sent: Monday, February 20, 2023 at 01:44:53 PM CST

Subject: Announcing New Braver Angels Alliance in Birmingham

Good Day to All Braver Angels Contacts in Birmingham,

 

We are excited to announce that some Braver Angels members in Birmingham have applied for and been accepted as a formal Alliance by the Braver Angels national leadership team. This makes us eligible to represent Braver Angels in a variety of ways and host both in person and zoom trainings and workshops. We are now making plans for our first workshop as well as other events that will give us a chance to get to know each other in a safe environment. This is a big step for Birmingham and we hope to take the opportunity to celebrate together. 

 

For every Braver Angels Alliance there must be both a “red” and “blue” co-chair and we are appreciative of the two Braver Angels members in Birmingham who have agreed to take this responsibility:

·        Steve Whitaker, Red Co-Chair--Steven Whitaker works as an enterprise architect for EBSCO information Systems and lives in Birmingham. As an Alabama native, he is lucky to have had many friends across the political spectrum, which is one of the reasons he was drawn to Braver Angels. In recent years, he has noticed that the number of topics he can safely discuss with friends has decreased and there has been a dramatic rise in emotional language and anger. He hopes to help reduce the heat in political discussions and remind everyone that they can engage in productive, principled conversations without being enemies. You can reach Steve at Swhitaker@braverangels.org 

·        Barbara Eiland, Blue Co-chair--Barbara is a retired grandmother of 7. She has worked as an EMT and Case Manager of Mentally Ill, Chemically Dependent and Mentally Retarded patients in various cities and also in Germany for two years.  She heard about Braver Angels on CBS This Morning and was impressed by what the organization is doing to promote civility in political discussions. She is looking forward to growing the Birmingham Alliance and helping to organize lots of events. Contact her at Beiland@braverangels.org. 

 

Now we would like to inspire you to take the next step in your Braver Angels journey. We invite you to do that in three ways:

1.     If you haven’t already done so, we strongly encourage you to become a member of Braver Angels.  You can join on the website (www.braverangels.org) and membership is only $1 a month (although you can donate more if you wish) and it provides access to all Braver Angels information, activities, resources and workshops.

2.     We will also need volunteers to help us run events. As you can see on the website there are several volunteer roles for you to consider. We are happy to answer questions and help you find the best fit for you.  We specifically need Moderators and Ambassadors to help conduct events and assist with recruitment.  Please contact one of the co-chairs or let me know if you want to explore ways you can help.

3.     Register for one of the online trainings, workshops or Braver Angels debates that are of interest to you.  These free events are listed on the website under the Braver Angels Event Calendar. Participants in these online activities regularly report how glad they were they attended and how much they learned. Participants are often surprised by how much we all have in common and how much we share the same hopes and dreams for this country.

 

Please contact me and/or your co-chairs if you are interested in helping Braver Angels in any way.  We are encouraged to be starting this Birmingham Alliance and will be back in touch soon about upcoming local activities.  In the meantime, we hope to hear from you that you’d like to help and also let us know if you have any questions or suggestions.

 

All the best,

 

Theo Brown

Alabama Coordinator

Braver Angels

240 393-7246