It’s been a while since I’ve posted at the Brains on Fire blog. I will be the first to say its not because I was suffering from blog burnout. I’ve always second-guessed myself and I’m sure like many I started to wonder was I really saying anything relevant. So I’m trying to turn a new leaf in blogging. So lets get this first post going.

My last 4 months of work has focused on one client and one main project for that client. I’ve made this comment to some of my co-workers “have you ever had that great idea but then when it came time for the idea to become reality you asked yourself what the hell was I thinking?” Rage Against The Haze the teen anti-tobacco use movement for South Carolina received new funding this year reviving the movement from the dead. With no guarantee of future funding support from the state legislature it made sense to us (Brains on Fire) and our client The Department of Heath and Environmental Control of South Carolina to try to build a network of youth that could re-build the movement and take ownership again. I was pretty jaded about this. I felt that we abandoned the youth of South Carolina when the program was de-funded and I really felt indifferent about if we could have success at raising the movement from the ashes. Past Rage teens have called themselves “ViralMentalists” for the last 4 years. That stands for an educated teen that infects others with the anti-tobacco message. In reality, a Rage ViralMentalist was similar to what most are now calling brand ambassadors but with a little twist. So we got the idea of taking ViralMentalist to an Ambassador. What‚s the difference? I don’t know yet, I’ll tell you in about a year. But our hope is it gives these Rage ambassadors more credibility and more authority to lead and engage others in the movement. We hope that they take it from the tactical to the conceptual. Teens today are bored with the big bad tobacco industry and we hoped that developing the ability to be a RAGE ambassador will help teens shape it as a cause for a healthy lifestyle for teens in South Carolina.

So back to that great idea, that once reality sets in you say “WTF was I thinking!?” Last weekend the Brains on Fire team led 43 SC teens through Camp Rage. Three days in the mountains of South Carolina of training to be RAGE’s first ambassadors, freezing temperatures, bunk beds in cabins, and about 6 hours of sleep. When you’re working with teens you have to let things just happen sometimes. Our trainers for the camp - we called them Counselors - are veteran RAGEers, some have been in RAGE since the very creation over 5 years ago. Friday was a slow night with the prospective Ambassadors when I met with the counselors for Saturday breakfast they were concerned that the kids didn’t seem to be getting it. Should we make some changes? No, we decided to stick to the plan, training and a big dose of team building and let’s pray that the dots start connecting. The Saturday training went steady and we all felt it ended positive. Now it came time for group dynamics or team building whatever you call it. I can’t say enough how great of a job the Camp Greenville counselors led our teens through the exercises. We had teens from 13 to 18, from the SC coast to the SC upstate. For quite a few of our teens this was their first experience in the mountains. Spike and I found this to our advantage, no sneaking out when the unknown waits outside the cabins! After free time and a feats of fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, green beans and banana pudding it was time for the campfire. I have to admit I thought it was corny idea when the Camp Greenville counselors recommended it but I learned a lesson. I don‚t know if it was the fire or our campfire sing-a-long leader Tennessee Doug but something happened that night. I have to admit tears cover my eyes when I think about it. Somewhere between singing “The Beaver Song,” “Hey Ya,” and “Lean on Me” it became magical. And as I looked around the campfire I saw a sea of teens, college students and adults arms around each other singing at the top of their lungs, it was like singing during a good ole southern revival. I’ll steal a quote from Joe, one of the RAGE counselors, “It was AWESOME.” I did notice one thing when the singing stopped and we started roasting marshmallows for smores, it got cold, real cold, had it been that cold the whole time?

The next morning in the diner for Sunday morning breakfast, Doug walked up to me. As I looked at Doug’s face I could see the start of tears in his eyes, He looked at me and said “That was special.” As I scanned the diner, watching the tables of RAGEers busy socializing, I saw my daughter. Tears filled my own eyes and I said, “Yeah, it was a special night.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 25th, 2006 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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