Get Up! and get involved

In the midst of major geopolitical shifts abroad and pressing issues closer to home, students, Bloomington residents and others from across the Midwest will attend the city's first Get Up! Conference this weekend, a two day gathering that will allow attendees to develop grassroots organizing skills, exchange experiences and share information.\nThe conference, which starts Saturday, will center around 30 different workshops on topics as varied as creating alternative forms of media, to fund-raising, to case studies of specific campaigns such as the successful effort to stop construction of a new golf course at Lake Griffey on the north side of Bloomington two years ago. \n"The conference is being organized now because we were able to bring everything together now. There's a constant need for the skills that are being presented in this conference," said Matthew Turissini, one of the organizers of the conference and current co-director at Boxcar Books. "The workshops are useful for anyone who wants to participate in the democratic process."\nTurissini said the conference is not geared toward any particular issue nor at a specific group of people or type of activist. Instead the focus will be on tools that anyone can use during an organizing drive. \n"When we originally talked about doing a conference about the skills and tools of activism and community involvement, we really wanted to make sure that we got the word out to people who have passion about issues but who currently don't know how to direct it," he said.\nLauren Taylor, another one of the conference's organizers, said finding ways to work on political campaigns of a local and international nature simultaneously is important.\n"You have I-69 -- the obvious example of a prominent local issue, and the war in Iraq is an example of an international one," she said. "You have to have a degree of self-determination and participation in the local community but also engage in dialogue and decision making process about global issues that you're less likely to have influence over but affect more people"