Manjusvara, extremely experienced fundraiser and author of `Writing Your Way', accompanied me this evening. Again it was really interesting and useful to have someone else's perspective on my door-knocking attempts. "Be light on your feet," he suggested, i.e. be ready to move towards or away from whoever I am communicating with on the doorstep as needed, and be ready to put more energy or less into what I'm saying. (We found in the role-playing exercises that communications seem more successful and appropriate when we make efforts to match the style, mood, volume, etc of the other person.)
Then my mentor stood on the pavement in the orange-yellow glow in that streetlit sleepy commuter town and waved our key tool, the fundraising booklet, around in the air. "It's like a magic wand," he said. It was as though a strange wizard from an altogether different world had unexpectedly appeared in this corner of suburbia.
He was helping me to sense extra possibilities in what could easily be mistaken for a gloomy residential area. "It's as though there's a golden thread of humanity and generosity running through this street, and you're coming along here to give it a polish."
He'd noticed that I was putting away and then getting out my paperwork, taking off and then putting back on the lid of my pen between calls. It was interrupting my flow and breaking up a sense of continuity. I felt that there could be quite a bit to reflect on in just those simple little details and comments. The perspective I was being offered seemed to charge every little thing with significance.
