Of the countless meetings I've attended after the election, focusing either on the postmortem of the No on 8 Campaign (including Saturday's Equality Summit), brainstorming strategy, figuring out how to build coalitions, planning events and actions, and trying to determine next steps for the movement, I have not been to one meeting that was as effective, inclusive, practical and educational as the Courage Campaign's Camp Courage.

I'll be brutally homest, the "Fired Up! Ready to Go!" and "Yes We Can!" chants seemed a little creepy at first. As someone who supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primary (before moving to Barack Obama for the general election), I was starting to feel uncomfortable. But once the program got rolling, I was blown away... In a good way.

We had "old school" civil rights activists, like Lisa Powell and SEIU's Liz Moore, train us on telling our stories and persuading voters. We also had newer activists, like Calitics blogger & Courage organizer Julia Rosen, train us on new tools like Courage's Equality Hub. All in all, I felt like I was actually being empowered to undo the damage of H8 at Camp Courage yesterday.

I have to admit, I did not have the highest expectations for Camp Courage when I saw the word "training". I was pleasantly surprised throughout the day as we went through trainings that were not condescending or rigid. They split us up into random groups and met new people and taught us that our biggest weapon was our own stories (which is exactly what we were trying to emphasize in our pre-election rally emphasized).

We did ice breaking activities, told our stories, heard other people's stories, learned how to recruit others, and learned how to make baby steps with the opposition. I would usually hate these activities but the way in which they were run was surprisingly empowering even though they were sometimes tough.

The lessons learned from Camp Obama are too late for prop 8, but will be an incredible resource for 2010. We went away from the day's activities refreshed, excited, and confident for the tough road ahead. I highly suggest you check out the next Camp Courage whenever it is scheduled and check out their new equality hub.

deondrake: #campcourage gets 4 gold stars from me...kudos to everyone who put it together

jdb: #campcourage Can't get Mike Bonin's words out of my head: with my inaction, I made me a 2nd-class citizen. I made you a 2nd-class citizen.

CathyBrooks: Learning power of story telling from Lisa Powell. So simple. So basic. Yet such an ah ha. Power in the room here is electric. #campcourage