Random Thoughts on the Tucson POCAfest
Sitting in the hot tub at the Best Western in Tucson:
A) Before Tucson I had idle thoughts of not going to the next one: Twin Cities. WHO AM I KIDDING???!!!???? I AM A TOTAL SLUT FOR POCAFESTS!
B) I like 80 degrees and sunny.
C) Best POCAfest ever? Yeah I think so. Here's the thing though. Each POCAfest has been better than the last because each POCAfest has reflected how we have grown as a community. A POCAfest timeline: First one in Portland spring 2010: WOW!! This is so cool! We're all in the same place! How great is that! Second one in Manchester, fall 2010: Eastern POCA people rock too! And jello! Nice seeing this a bit better organized too while in a children's museum! Third one, Marin Headlands, spring 2011: PAAAAAARTY! Moon, beer, great location. Fourth one, Providence spring 2012: We're not just for punks anymore! We got families and non punk staff and they are awesome too! CO-OP!!!! Fifth one, Tucson, NOW: A new page is turned, or SHIT JUST GOT REAL. Yeah we exist, we know that now. Let's dig deeper, see what's under the hood. So we are growing as a group and individuals and we can support each other while doing that. That's what makes this POCAfest the best ever. Well that and…
D) Lisa found the perfect tuna sandwich at the Time Market and many people found great ginger ale at the Sky Bar. Also…
E) Our bench is getting really really deep. In the beginning it was about what WCA was doing. Then a few years later other clinics began chiming in as they had experience and from that experience came knowledge. That widening process has continued until now where I swear that while we had 15 breakout sessions and a keynote speech and a panel discussion and Andy's opening I could have switched all those presenters out with 30-40 other attendees who could have done equally great jobs. That's not at all all me saying that the breakouts weren't great-they were and in fact they were as solid a lineup as we've ever had. But at the last lunch I looked around and saw all these people who could have done a kick-ass breakout if I had asked them. People like Mike Gonzalez, Michelle Lemieux, Suzzanne Lohr, Rob Singer, Ashley O'Brian, Hannah Beachy, Kelly Allen, Jax and Chris Rodgers, Amy Severinsen, Jessica Hansen, and I'm not being trying to be comprehensive here. Add to these folks all the people who didn't attend who are also growing and developing their experiences as CA people. Wow. We are becoming a very solid group. I can't wait to hear new presentations each POCAfest.
F) Zuzi theatre was a great location too, especially the theatre where we all gathered together.
G) Would be nice to have bus drivers who knew their way around town though. I thought for a while all that love might evaporate when we had to eat each other in the desert like a reverse Donner Party.
H) Hanging out in the courtyard under the orange tree, smelling orange blossoms and holding Nora's baby: sublime.
I) Our schools could use more teachers like Kevin Campopiano.
J) Any doubts that transition from CAN to POCA was in any way a loss were completely dispelled here. CAN was needed and good in its day; POCA is the present and future.
K) Somewhat Survey related: it's clear now that 7000-8000 are the max # of treatments a solo punk can do without doing things very differently-and no one has.
L) Long-haired dogs here are as rare as rain it seems.
M) POCAfests warp the time-space continuum while they are happening. We were all together somewhere while 72 hours were passing for other people and it was both way longer and way shorter for us.
N) Let's hear it for the Three Beaches showing us all how to have fun and see tons of patients!
O) It should now be obvious who the next POCA Org member should be: Dr. Thunder. When he strips to underwear and a cape you know the Punk equivalent in the karaoke world has been found. He doesn't have to go to every POCAfest but any one that has him will be the better for it.
P) The POCA t-shirt banner is awesome! Hopefully you will see pictures of it soon. Mary Margaret Dobson made it out of t0shirts of POCA clinics. All it needs now is more clinics donating more shirts so send it to her via Summerville CA NOW! (And MMD I got several shirts to send you.)
Q) So we got more than enough possible breakout leaders for POCAfests for years and years. But I got to ask you: do we over schedule? Do we want more free time to chat? For Americans at least (Not Canadians or Floridians) while the CEUs are nice the fact that POCATv now offers 8 free CEUs makes the need to grab POCAfest CEUs not so acute anymore. So should we have more time during the weekend where no CEUs are being offered with fewer CEUs in total? Let me know.
R) It's always 80 degrees and sunny at 2pm in Tucson year-round. Right Josh?
S) CA 101 was a success! Not only did we have nine students attend and get the real info on CA but a bunch of other people attended those breakouts. We'll definitely be doing more of this in the future.
T) Besides the students we had a large share of newbie punks who really helped to make the proceedings rock. Any thoughts of POCAfests being just the same old group of punks is so totally wrong as to be laughable. Your new blood was great to see!
U) T-shirt swap! Like Filene's basement during a sale. Seems like we love wearing other clinics' colors.
V) Tucson is sooooo freakin' quiet.
W) Thanks for all the volunteers for helping with registration and room set up. Made things possible.
X) It it isn't obvious: big big kudos to Josh Whiteley and Ellen Vincent for organizing this POCAfest into a a fantastic experience. It wouldn't have happened without you. When they agreed to host this POCAfest they were just about to open their clinic, TACO. Taking on two projects like that at once-ballsy is the word that comes to mind. They did both perfectly and made it look easy.
Y) Schedule for future POCAfests in reverse order: – Austin fall 2016 – Nashville spring 2016 – Portland fall 2015 – Providence spring 2015 and the very next one is…
Z) Twin Cities next September 12-14. Actually Hudson, Wisconsin just over the state line on the St Croix river at Camp St Croix. Easy to get to from Minneapolis airport: https://www.ymcatwincities.org/camps/camp_st_croix/ We'll be formally announcing it around June 1st with early bird registration thru June. The camp looks very family friendly-think Providence. So join me in letting your POCAfest slut flag fly!
Author: Skip Van Meter
Skip is Lead Acupuncturist and Co-Founder of <a href="https://www.workingclassacupuncture.org/" target="_blank">Working Class Acupuncture</a> in Portland, Oregon. With the earlier part of his life spent acquiring knowledge about geology, urban planning and teaching high school, he has now been an acupuncturist for 19 years, using about a 1,750,000 needles poking his patients. He likes all things soccer, has three fabulous sons, the best wife in the world, and a great dog and two cool cats.
Add your own thoughts please!
That ginger ale was amazing, too. And the cacti!
Alexa and I were talking while waiting for our flights yesterday about how POCAfests are another example of the fractal. Like in our clinics, you don’t have time to have really long conversations with everyone, but get to know folks through brief, sometimes intense conversations over time. I found out new things about comrades I’ve spent many weekends with before; and I had some really sweet, honest conversation with some new folks too (or folks I’d only “met” online, which is also really cool). You can’t expect to know everything about a person during the first intake/first meeting, but (as Whitsitt said after the Manch POCAfest) we’re talking about a group of people that are used to making heartfelt, in-person, authentic connections with people day after day in the clinic, so it’s naturally a really fun, really real group of people to be around.
Thanks so much Ellen and Josh for your hard work organizing and hosting, and the TCA folks for co-hosting, and all of the presenters, and Annie and Courtney and Wade and Moses (and I’m forgetting someone) for doing so much unglamorous tech and support work!
Ugh! The first POCAfest I missed. Lesson learned!
So good! Two days back in and I’ve already used tips from my conflict resolution breakout with Alexa and Nora!
And as for more free time- I for one have felt like by the last day I would prefer to just get together and mingle.
That’s a good idea Amy-your last day suggestion. The Saturday’s of POCAfest are so long and intense that we all feel a little wiped out on Sunday morning. Maybe not a completely free day but definitely a day where people are free to mingle and have longer talks.
Finally recovering today from the whole weekend….I know because I’m getting the first bites of Post-Pocafest depression! It feels so normal to have everyone in the same place at the same time that it seems like it should just always be that way. But watching people one by one saying their goodbyes and trickling out of the Sky Bar on Sunday afternoon, I was reminded again that its only temporarily that we get to have these experiences.
Overall I am extremely happy with the way Tucson POCAfest went over. I hope everyone else felt the same way too. Its always hard to try and compare one fest to another, as they all tend to be special and the “best one ever”….in their own individual way. This one is particularly tough since I live here and was part of the on the ground team helping to organize things. Being objective and also feeling like this is just what we do everyday with out the excitement of a new town/fest location to be a piece of the overall atmosphere of it all adds to that too.
That being said, I think this one was the best fest ever! I really do. In my mind there are a few different factors that make a fest special, and then there is also just that little extra piece of magic that shows up if you’re lucky to really put it down in history and I think Tucson had that. Marin is always going to win for me as far as physical location goes, you just really can’t beat being on the beach no matter how cool your location is. Manch will probably always win with the entertainment factor of jello wrestling, hands down. The others were all amazing too, but here’s my thoughts on Tucson:
Tucson had an excellent venue with the ZUZI/Historic Y. Ease of use and the perfect sized rooms/theater for all of our needs. Great food in the courtyard under blossoming trees and a light breeze, temps in the damn near perfect range the whole time. Hotels and all extracurricular activities within very short distances of each other. The bus tour, despite a lost bus driver for half of the crew, got a chance to go see a big damn clinic and a beautiful sunset from a mountain top overlooking an open expanse of Saguaro filled desert quietness….and the full moon rise shortly after that. Saturday night Karaoke and dancing was another major highlight that I’ll remember forever. Nothing like seeing your friends shaking their asses and trying out their shaky voices. The very esteemed Dr Thunder kept the party going all night long with his karaoke jockey prowess, and for the dedicated late attendees, they got to see him in his Dr Thunder signature booty shorts and sparkle cape! We also have our newest org member with Dr Thunder, so if you need a KJ, give the good doctor a call! You won’t be disappointed
The break outs were all solid, no filler or fluff. This POCAfest was in a lot of ways the most real as Suzzanne put it at the closing and Skip did above. Resilience being the theme this time clearly speaks to that. Lots of tears all around with conversations revolving around the struggles and triumphs of our patients and fellow punks getting through this thing called life….together. The resilience of POCA which began as an organization that the profession wanted to just go away, to now becoming the biggest national org in just a few short years time. And lots of new babies everywhere for the smiles!!! I got to say too, I really think this was Lisa Rohleder’s best key note speech to date. Go read the transcript if you haven’t already. Rumor has it it might be a while before she does another one. Oh, and if anyone is curious to know, YES, Lisa does know how to throw the I Ching 🙂
What’s great about throwing POCAfests too is that the work always gets done together. Big shout outs to everyone who helped from the organizing of events and break outs, teaching, check in desking, bus tour leading, or just sticking around and seeing if anything else needed to be done or cleaned up. Biggest shout out of course to the Arizona punks who made sure TACO was in tip top shape after karaoke for patients the next morning!
It was awesome to have you all out here and always gives me a fresh burst of energy to get through until the next time we can do this again. We’ve really built somethign amazing.
Thanks for the kind words, Josh! This was my favorite keynote to DO so far because I got to do it with a smart, wonderful, talented comrade (Lisa B.). “Better together” as we say in the co-op world and it’s true. And regarding future keynotes…just to address the rumors about why I was kissing Alexa in the Sky Bar (of course, who wouldn’t want to kiss Alexa in the Sky Bar or anywhere else?)…you can add to the rumor mix that Alexa might be doing the next keynote.
And yes, thank you, I do know my way around the I-Ching.
I just have to add — we didn’t even need the “quiet party” room! Lesson learned there — even if it might just mean that our waiting room is way more soundproof than we thought. I have no idea how many people actually made it to the karaoke party, but I would love to hear any reports back about what activities people chose that night other than that! I hope it wasn’t just the lost bus motion sickness that kept you away…
Love hearing about PFest, since I wasn’t there. More please. And I would like to throw it out there – there should be a NJ/Phila Pfest added to the line up. Who’s with me?
For me it was a whirlwind–equally fun (tap&bottle;, taco karaoke) and useful (conflict res, needling tech, keynote inspiration)! I enjoyed bringing my husband and having him meet people that he’s heard me talk about.
Each time I’ve attended an event like this (bdc ’13 & pfest RI), I have a different set of questions and issues I want to find out about and that’s pretty cool because it indicates how these gatherings address punks at various stages of their evolution. I am grateful for that.
I didn’t feel like I had enough time to talk with people as I’d like to–partly poor travel arrangements on my part, could’ve taken another day off, gotten my ass up earlier for coffee before 9 a.m. start times.
When I think of RI, we had 3 meals a day together, so that had more built in time to hang out with other folks.
It’s always great to see other clinic spaces and it’s nice to see people in person. The forums do a lot in terms of lessening isolation but it’s good to get hugs from other punks and see your smiling faces!
Thanks for all of your hard work Arizona punks!
Trauma and Resilience break out with the two Lisas was heart breaking and sooo good.
Right swiggs-having all meals together is a plus. Basically more time with each other the better it is.
More random thoughts:
It was great having circle reports at PF. We got some new recruits for the CR circle, yay!, and I bet other circles did too – there seemed to be a lot of circle volunteer chatter throughout the weekend. Future circle reports should always involve wigs and/or giant novelty sunglasses.
I think the best thing about any POCAfest is that it gets people talking. And in this one we *really* talked. Real, honest, authentic talk. The breakouts were great conversation-starters. The Lisas’ Trauma and Resilience breakout dug deep in a way we hadn’t done before. It brought us all to a new level of trust in one another.
Great conversations happen not only during PF, but afterwards too. Next time you go to a PF, don’t leave early! Stay and hang out. Have dinner or some ginger ale with old and new friends. Share a ride to the airport. Or do as Roppie suggested and just get some phone numbers. It’s important to keep these conversations going. Find a way to debrief with your comrades.
Ellen and Josh, you were amazing hosts! The venue was magnificent, the food was scrumptious, the close proximity and walkabilty of everything was lovely, and the party at TACO was fabulous. Thank you to all the Arizona punks and patients for welcoming us to your fine town.
I wore my “Keep Calm and Nap On” shirt to work yesterday and got about a zillion compliments. Nice work, TCA.
Getting kissed by Lisa at Skybar was definitely a highlight. It was like getting kissed by Mother Teresa.
I too am a shameless POCAfest slut! Can’t wait to see you all again in September! I love and miss you all!!!
I loved it all. I echo what Nora said about getting to know everyone through brief interactions over time. There are so many people I wanted to talk to more. Darlene in Detroit, I am sorry that I walked passed you and just smiled all bleary eyed and tired. I want to catch up with you more next time. I mean, we’ve been Facebook friends for, like, ev-ah. The karaoke party meant a lot to me, I know it sounds crazy, but sharing my silly show tune was getting to share a part of me that rarely ever comes out and I appreciated the laughs and the applause. I loved dancing with everyone. I got to be roommates again with my acu-school roommate, which brought back so many great memories. I also came home with a renewed sense of purpose for how I want to contribute to POCA coop to make it more accessible to members and to keep growing to involve more people. Thanks for the hugs, and yes, Suzanne is right, thanks for keepin’ shit real.
Alexa is definitely doing ALL THE KEYNOTES from here on out.
Wait, what???
What I meant to say was that it was like getting kissed by SOMEONE WHO IS IN NO WAY like Mother Teresa.
Ahhhh. Alexa you just crushed me. I’ve been getting such mileage out of your first MT comment. I could have dined out on that for months. Now all is lost…I am bereft.
No, wait! Alexa, I want to know how YOU know what it’s like to be kissed by Mother Teresa in a bar.
You’ll need to buy me something stronger than ginger ale to hear THAT story.
Kevin is an awesome teacher! He was tossing jewels out left and right. I found Jessica’s class really fascinating. I’d love to see it put up in the forums. Great talking to everyone; wish I didn’t have to split my time between you all and my in-laws! I was hoping for a Marin P’fest next year, but it sounds like that is not on the books. Thanks to all the Tucsonites!
Volunteering to help out with the Nashville Pfest, when you get started organizing let me know so I can schedule!
Excellent MMD. You are at the top of the list!