Missed my chance to speak last night

Operation Hope Discussion
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I wanted to speak at last night’s meeting (10/8/2025) but I couldn’t find the ‘raise your hand’ button. Here’s what I wanted to talk about:

I am wanting some clarity on the role that TYT staff will play in Operation Hope. I’ve been disappointed in what seemed to be a lack of engagement in ideas, but it very well could be that I misunderstood the role that TYT intends to play in these efforts.

Last night, the impression I got was more like ‘you guys generate the ideas, you guys figure out how to do it, organize and execute the project yourselves and ask us if you think there is something TYT can help with.’

That’s s lot different from what I understood based on my first few meetings, and that’s OK, as long as I can align my expectations with TYT’s intentions for leading Operation Hope.

I would argue that what Operation Hope needs from TYT is organization and leadership on a project basis. Give an initial thumbs up/down on an idea. Workshop it at the upper TYT and lower volunteer levels for validity and feasibility. Based on that, decide what projects Operation Hope will mobilize as a unit to execute.

For example, say we get 100 idea submissions between TYT viewers and Operation Hope volunteers. TYT staff distills that down to maybe 10 of the greatest/most effective ideas. Pass those cream of the crop ideas to the volunteers and then we can discuss to see what talent and resources those ideas would require. The talent pool isn’t unlimited so the volunteers say alright, we believe we have the resources and talent to execute on these 2 ideas.

From that point, I would prefer Operation Hope leadership do some form of project management on those 2 ideas, even if that’s just designating time at each meeting for the workforce to provide updates about progress, blockers, whatever.

I’m seeing this approach as a means to push the volunteers we have in the same direction. It was mentioned last night about spreading volunteers too thin, and that sentiment is what encouraged me to go ahead and speak up on this. I agree. I think we need to get the volunteers we have rowing in the same direction.

Not to mention, we need to retain the people who might show up for one meeting and maybe that particular night they don’t see a whole lot of action…so they might not return. I think more than appreciated, people want to feel USEFUL. When someone shows up for the first time, that’s your best chance to get them to stay. Task them with something, even if it’s super simple. Maybe everyone gets a simple task every week.

Thoughts on that, or TYT leadership of projects?

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I love these ideas. Our next meeting will focus specifically on how we will restructure the working group meetings and move things forward. I suppose I am “Operation Hope leadership” so feel free to email me directly and let me know what role you would like to play. Hope@tyt.com

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Sounds great, Kara! I sent you an email! :slight_smile:

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If you’re on your phone the ‘raise hand’ is in the list of actions in the chat, it took me 2 meetings to find it since I had zero experience with zoom. I don’t have a pc or tablet to use so idk if that helps you.

The Ope Hope group took a lot of time and effort together, and open discussion on TYT forums, to come up with the Populist Plank, and more recently the engagement tool for directly contacting representatives to get traction. For a few weeks prior there’s been discussion about almost exactly what you’re asking for as far as organizing, but the new move that Cenk announced has made a bit of a shake up. Like Kara said, next meeting that’ll be a main focus, I’m sure she’ll make sure you have one of the first opportunities to talk.

Kara is (I think) the only TYT employee that is running this, there are a couple other members who I would consider “leadership” by how much they have been doing, and I’m just some guy but I try to answer questions and help when I can. I specifically asked Cenk about the other hosts and contributors on the network, he was clear that he’s not asking for their involvement but wouldn’t refuse it. I’ve tried to get them to shout out during their live streams. And now I’ll try to get a thread going for new people that first show up at Operation Hope and don’t see a Welcome sign.

Thanks for being here!

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I think the assigning a task to new visitors sounds like a great idea! I haven’t been at any meeting, and I might not ever because time zones, but I would suggest something like this for the main meetings: 1. Updates on projects, promote new ideas etc. (really quick, like, 5 minutes). 2. Workshop on a single project. As long as it’s easy to contribute to for new people and feels real and impactful (so, rather setting up a website or writing an article than talking about advertising and engagement or having a philosophical discussion, for example) (30 min). 3. Ideas, brainstorming, questions, more in-depth updates, relevant news updates, etc.. BUT for that to work there would have to be at least one organizer with a good plan. And a project to work on. I’m not sure it’s realistic in the first place, just throwing out ideas.

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