Whew. I just came back from eight days of meetings (not a misprint) as part of Greenpeace’s three-year planning process. It was four meetings (Oceans, Climate, Forests, and Genetic Engineering), but those of us involved in cross cutting work like communications and actions needed to be present at all.

Here’s what I put in my meeting survival kit:

1. A Large Mug: conference centers in the Netherlands encourage coffee and tea economy by offering tiny thimble-sized cups. I say nuts to that. Give me my industrial-quantities cup, the one made by supporter Grateful Child as gifts for all of us in supporter services and on the web team.

2. Painkillers: I’m a fan of the big pink pill, ibuprofen. Works great against the hangover from late night ad hoc intersessionals at the bar as well as the inevitable acronym-induced brain pressure that arises from listening to real experts talk in their technical shorthand.

3. Running shoes: Time was I was a religious runner, every morning, at these events as a hedge against indoor-itis. I’ve got a bad knee now (see painkillers, above) but this is still my favorite head-clearer.

4. Chris Rose’s How to Win Campaigns. This is the book I use the way Renaissance Artists used black mirrors, gazing deep to restore their color appreciation. Always relevant, always a good reminder of things to keep in mind at the strategic, communications, and tactical level. No environmental or human rights campaigner should be without this.

5. Tiger balm and Chocolate. OK, I fudged the last one into two, but these are my favorite weapons in the arsenal against the late-afternoon dip. The 2pm slot is deadly, I try to avoid it when I present, and when I´m in the audience I need the chocolate zing, and a tiny bit of tiger balm rubbed into the temples and on the forehead between the eyes does some sort of chakra-awakening that keeps me from blowing Zs out into the plenary.

But I guess the most important thing that I need to remind myself to bring to these occasions is the big picture. It’s so damn easy to get lost in the details of any one campaign, the political strategies to win particular treaty language or the tactical work to raise awareness in the most general ways, that I have to make a physical effort to step back and ask the big questions.

Is this the best thing we can do with our limited resources to slow global warming within 40 years? Is this going to reach people’s hearts and minds and get them involved in that struggle? And is this something that only Greenpeace can do in defense of the global commons?

Might as well never unpack those questions, and just give them a permanent spot in the meeting backpack.

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