Now let me tell you about some of the other wonderful and dedicated souls who are part of the Democracy Cafe team, and are committed to fulfilling our vision of making ours a world in which everyone matters and counts in my next blog.
I met Charlynn Duecy, fellow Virginian and senior public relations strategist at Microsoft, while at a Civic Salon organized by the nonpareil mover and shaker Doug Smith, executive director of the Center for the Constitution at Montpelier. Not long afterwards, I rather diffidently asked her if she might consider coming aboard our nonprofit, and was met, much to my delight, with an enthusiast ‘yes.’ Charlynn has burned the midnight oil in developing a compelling public relations strategy for the launch and ongoing success of the Declaration Project — and she’s to thank for the lightbulb for perfecting the idea and the unfolding of the MyDeclaration component of this project.
Not only that, Charlynn has developed a template for how to go about composing personal declarations that has been of such immense help to the rest of us on Democracy Cafe that it seems to me it’ll make a great part of the curriculum we plan to develop around this project.
Then there’s board member Dennis Dienst, whom I met in Madison, WI, not long after the launch of my Socrates Cafe book tour way back in 2001. Dennis saw a segment about me on BookTV. When he heard I was going to be in Madison, he made the four-plus hour drive from the Twin Cities to be there. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Dennis made a surprise visit to New York to be part of the baby shower for our first child, and when I asked him to join Democracy Cafe, he readily agreed. The thing about Dennis is that once he makes a commitment to something, he is there for you all the way. There is no hesitation or hedging or holding back. Needless to say, it’s been an incredible boon to have him on our board.
Same goes with the rest of our team, many of whom I met during serendipitous encounters — like entrepreneur Sam Fairchild, whom I sat beside on a plane flight to Mexico about a decade ago and with whom I proceeded to hit it off famously; Paul Martin, who attended my Gemini Ink-sponsored presentation and dialogue in San Antonio when I was invited to keynote at their Breakthrough Thinker Series and who has since become a close friend and unswerving supporter; Jim Burke, who was one of the very first to invite me to give a workshop (at the time, I was in a state of disbelief that someone actually wanted to pay me to do such a thing); Shirley Strum Kenny, who invited me to give not one but two presentations as part of the president’s lecture series when she led Stony Brook University. Then there is our young advisory board member Sawyer Neale, a student at St. John’s College, alma mater of Paul Martin, who wrote in his application for admissions that my children’s book The Philosophers Club, was key in his development as a thinker, as he attests on Youtube.
There is a similar story to tell for each and every board member and advisory member. I am honored and humbled that Democracy Cafe’s mission means enough to them that they have been willing to devote an immense amount of time to our success, and further blessed to count them as friends. (I have not purposely omitted the story of our board member and secretary/treasurer Cecilia Chapa, my wife — it’s just that it would take a book for me to tell that tale. Suffice it to say for the moment that I owe the lion’s share of my success in all my endeavors in every dimension of my life to the woman of my dreams, my personal Diotima.)
