The Annual Summit is my favorite event of the year—we come together to learn from an amazing line-up of presenters, learn from each other and have fun! You bring the energy. The new ideas. The passion that reminds all of us why we work so hard the rest of the year.

Cindy Shawcross is one of the “passion bringers.”

Consumers Union first connected with Cindy in July 2008 through the “Cover America Tour” a campaign where we traveled the country to film people’s experiences with the health care system. Cindy, a cancer survivor, spent all of her retirement savings to afford COBRA after she lost her job.  We filmed Cindy’s story while visiting her home in Fargo, ND and we’ve been working closely with her ever since.

In October 2008, she traveled to New York for our Activist Summit where she received extensive media training and took the Blogging 101 workshop. As the health care reform debate has moved forward Cindy has become a leader in her community, speaking at rallies, meeting with members of Congress, and telling her story to reporters on numerous occasions. Cindy even started her own blog! She regularly joins in on conference calls to keep activists up to date, and very few weeks go by when she doesn’t have contact with our organizers to ask questions and share ideas.

Whether it’s speaking to the press, delivering hand-written letters to Congressional offices or handing out yard signs to local activists, Cindy has turned her personal struggle for affordable health care into powerful community organizing using everything she learned at our Summit.

This year Cindy will be a trainer herself, presenting at the workshop “Moving Issues Through Citizen Action.” She (and others) will discuss the tools and tactics for building support and visibility for the issues you care about at the local, state and national levels.

So what kind of fun are we in for this year? I am smiling just thinking about it. The agenda is packed! There will be the opening night reception on Wednesday where we all get to know each other (every year this is the hands down favorite). And then on Thursday after the morning on the Hill, there are sure to be new bonds, funny stories and successes to celebrate. Then sit back with some popcorn because we’re screening two movies. Before Friday’s HUGE day of speakers. And I mean HUGE! We have Austan Goolsbee (not only an expert on the economy but just took home the prize of "D.C.'s Funniest Celebrity”). And we have Eric Schlosser, an amazing investigative reporter for years and recently starred in Food. Inc (one of the films we are screening on Thursday). And that’s just some of what’s on the docket; we all know the most fun happens organically throughout the whole event.

So come. Find a cheap flight or drive to DC with a group; call up a friend and see if you can stay with them. Or take advantage of the hotel rates we have negotiated to help keep the costs down. And if you need help with the costs, apply for one of our many scholarships. We want this to be the best Summit yet, and in order to do that we need you there. So drop us an email and we will help you get creative!

Let’s have some fun!

See you in DC,
Morgan Jindrich Baum