Mischief Managed: An Announcement from Andrew Slack
A co-founder of the Harry Potter Alliance, Andrew has served as our Executive Director and President. Today, he’s announcing his departure as an HPA employee with this message:
“Dear fellow members of the Harry Potter Alliance,
In the wake of our Not In Harry’s Name chocolate frog victory with Warner Bros., I was in Iceland. Iceland is a magical place where they believe in elves (and as such, are more respectful of the environment, not wanting to destroy the homes of any elves). As I was trekking in this otherworldly landscape at the ends of the earth, peering into the heart of magnificent glaciers that are tragically melting, something dawned on me:
I need to stay both a leader and board member of the HPA. But after ten years, I need to leave the payroll as an employee.
If the HPA is the Dumbledore’s Army of our world, then it is time for me to create our own Order of the Phoenix. Doing so will allow the HPA to truly transform the world by imagining better.
Standing in Iceland, peering into the heart of that magical country, I knew in my heart what needed to happen. And like magic, Micah Sirfry - a mentor of mine - offered me a job at his new one-of-a-kind Civic Hall upon my return to the United States. Pretty incredible coincidence! I am going to be Civic Hall’s first fellow in Civic Imagination.
My task, essentially, is to continue working with the HPA on campaigns like Odds In Our Favor and to start entirely new campaigns, including a forthcoming campaign on Star Wars to get the Empire that is Big Money to no longer aim its Death Star at democracy. And there’s more: by 2016, we’ll be announcing programs like Imagine Better Learning that seek to reinvent education in a way that is centered on the imagination. For more, please go here.
So while leaving the employ of the HPA, I am in no way leaving the community. And I’m leaving knowing that our Executive Director Matt Maggiacomo, the other members of our Senior Staff, our volunteer staff, our over 250 chapters in 30 countries, and our members - Wizard Activists like you - will carry this torch together. That in dark and difficult times we will continue to choose what is right over what is easy, continue to approach fantasy not as an escape from our world but as an invitation to go deeper into it, and continue to realize that we are the eighth book. And - as the eighth book - that we will strive to remember that our job is not to save the world, but to fall in love with it.
As we do, there will be more victories like Not In Harry’s Name. As we do, all of us on this precious planet will come together and embrace the notion that the human race does not need to have a tragic ending to our story. Instead, we get to choose our next adventure.
And while it feels dramatic to no longer be on the payroll of the HPA, it’s more of a technicality than anything else. I look forward to more adventures together as we work to destroy every one of our world’s most intractable horcruxes in the name of justice, magic, and - most of all - love.
Until then, after ten years, it’s pretty fun to say mischief managed. And yet, at the same time, to not be truly leaving you but joining you… to still being up to no good.
Thank you for ten years of wonderment, friendship, and social change. Here’s to ten more!
The Weapon We Have Is Love,
Harry Potter Alliance - Creator, Cofounder, Board member”
