After three months on the road with the U2 360 tour, I’m now passing the torch (well, walkie-talkie since we didn’t have a torch) to Matt Higginson.

I’ve had a fantastic time, meeting ONE members around Europe and North America and working with our volunteers to sign up tens of thousands of new folks. But, now Matt is back from leave so I have a chance to head home to London and get back to mobilising our global membership to take action on some key upcoming moments.

Thank you to everyone who helped along the way, especially the hundreds of energetic and passionate volunteers who really did all the hard work of signing up new members. I hope to see you all again soon and that you’ll join me in wishing Matt good luck with the rest of the tour.

-Weldon Kennedy

I’ve never thought about driving to a large parking lot and having a party out of the back of my car. As such, it’s hardly surprising that the phenomenon of tailgating took me a little bit by surprise. But here on the North American U2 tour, the stadium parking lots turn into a massive series of parties, each of which is a veritable gold mine for new ONE members. It’s fantastic.

Just as every city and stadium presents a different way to sign up ONE members, I also find there are people with a variety of motives for joining. Everyone has a different reason for joining, from people who have a personal experience with extreme poverty to environmentalists who are concerned that not enough is being done to help the poor adapt to climate change. Whatever the person’s reason for joining, all it takes is a few seconds of introduction to ONE for most people to be convinced that they want to be members. And hence, I love all the tailgaters who give time (and sometimes food) to my ONE volunteers. Party on in the parking lot.

-Weldon Kennedy

The U2 360 spaceship has landed in North America, and we’re off to a rockin’ start. Matt (who’ll be running the tour for most of the North American tour) met me in Chicago and we ran around town gathering T-shirts, wristbands, and our new tabling set up. Everything was in perfect order, including the weather. I’m told the odds of 4 September days of 72 degree sunny weather is an near impossibility in Chicago, but that’s what we got.

Our 30 volunteers were in good form, recruiting new members by the thousands. The biggest obsticale they ran into was that many of the fans were already ONE members. Not a bad problem to have!

I’m in Toronto now, and ready to get rolling on another two shows. I hope to see you at a show soon!

-Weldon Kennedy

As you know, Weldon Kennedy has been traveling with the U2 360 Tour through Europe, coordinating ONE volunteers and signing up thousands of ONE members at numerous concerts. He reflects on his time there:

It was a long summer touring around Europe with U2, but I’ve had a little rest and I’m ready to get back into action this weekend in Chicago. In just two months at 24 shows we signed up over 40,000 new ONE members, and fired up groups of ONE volunteers who are continuing to take action and organise in their communities.

One of the things that keeps me smiling up through the long days of the tour are the warm messages I receive from those volunteers all along the way. I asked a couple of them if I could share their sentiments, and I hope that you find them just as inspiring:

I wanted to volunteer for ONE for quite some time but I didn’t have a chance to before and thank you for giving me the opportunity. I’m still shaking from my head to my toes, it was probably one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.

My heart is so filled with pride and love and I’m sure u all feel the same. All of you made me happier and more optimistic than I’ve been in a very long time.

To be there, so speak and to be heard, to teach others…for the first time I had a feeling that I am actually really doing something.

And it felt good.

It felt good to know that I´m doing something worthwhile, and that even I can make a change.

It is hard to explain how this was important to me, but I think that you know it:-).

Giving me chance to work for a real and good thing is so precious. Giving me chance to do this during U2 concerts is just….like a dream.

America, I hope you’re ready to have a good time and sign up scores of new ONE members. Toss on your ONE shirts and let’s rock and roll.

-Weldon Kennedy

As you know, Weldon Kennedy is traveling with the U2 360 Tour signing up new ONE members all across Europe. He writes from Sweden:

I have a catch phrase that’s served me well along the U2 tour: “It’s not gonna rain.” Thus far with that phrase and the collective will power of tens of thousands of fans, we’ve managed to keep the rain off of us despite what the forecast said. I suppose I should have been saying, “It’s not gonna rain, and there won’t be gale force winds.” But I didn’t, and so that was our weather for the first day in Gothenburg, Sweden. You can get a sense of the conditions from the picture above from when we were unloading in the morning.

But the rough and rugged ONE volunteers braved the wind and the rain, and still managed to sign up hundreds of new ONE members. I was as impressed as I was cold – I’d packed for a summer concert tour and lacked the proper insulation for the 17C windy soggy day.

Everything changed for the second day in Gothenburg. The skies cleared, the wind stopped, and we were in serious business. We doubled the number of people we signed up, and after the concert still had the energy to share a few laughs and a some Swedish gummy candies – Gott & blandat, which I highly recommend if salt liquorice sounds good to you.

It’s now onward back to Germany, where I’m meeting up with a couple members of the German team for a show in Gelsenkirchen. With any luck it’s not going to rain (again).

-Weldon Kennedy

Phew! The U2 360 Tour has been fun, exciting, and a ton of work. As you know I’ve been traveling with the tour from city to city signing up ONE Members, coordinating volunteers, sorting out logistics… and “Kissing the Future”.

After the tour’s launch in Barcelona, we headed to Milan, Italy where lots of volunteers turned out to help sign up concert-goers to become ONE Members. One really cool thing about the volunteers in Milan was that it really seemed to be a family affair, with parents showing up with kids in tow just to help out. It was great to see different generations coming together to work as ONE. Some of the youngsters were pretty shy at first, but I found the trick was to get them out of their parents’ shadows, and then they really started to get into the fun. As more and more concert-goers poured in, I found the inter-generational dynamic of the volunteers actually perfectly reflected the make-up of the crowd, with people of all ages coming to enjoy the music and—assuming we did our job right—learn a little about ONE.

After Milan we headed to Paris for a couple concerts at the Stade de France. Stade de France is that it’s not only the biggest stadiums I’ve ever been in, but one of the biggest structures I’ve ever stood in, period. It was absolutely huge. While an awesome sight, this also made coordinating ONE volunteers that much more difficult. Security was also an issue, not leaving us with much room to catch eager U2 fans as they made their way towards the stage. Fortunately on the second night we went TO the crowd waiting in lines outside the Stade and signed up hundreds of ONE Members.

From Paris we headed south to Nice, which ended up being a bit of a trick in terms of transporting all of our tabling kit. I ended up enlisting the aid of a crew of men in the middle of the night to help me push a cart of equipment back to my hotel, then hired a van with a faulty petro meter to drive down to Nice. But once I was there, it was amazing. Informally referred to as U2’s “second home town”, The crowd there really treated U2 as one of their own and the atmosphere was very warm, pun on the 34 C weather not intended. Just as the other stops along the tour, lots of music and lots of sign-ups.

From Nice we went to Berlin (which Carola was kind enough to write about here) and then to Amsterdam for another two concerts. There we set up kiosks inside the stadium as there was absolutely no space to set up our tents outside. Interestingly, the security there asked that we not sign people up to become “ONE Members” but asking that they sign a “petition” was perfectly okay. With a little finessing, everything worked out. I also followed the old rule “when in the Netherlands…” and hired a bicycle for my stay in Amsterdam. While I normally have to take taxis to freight my equipment from place to place, I managed to load most of it up my bike and cruise around on the beautiful bike path between my hotel and the stadium. It turned my otherwise stressful commute into a peaceful morning and evening ride.

All in all, a very successful tour so far, with over 16,000 sign ups by the end of Amsterdam. I’ll have more for you from on the road soon!

-Weldon Kennedy

Last Saturday, U2 finally hit Germany with their 360° tour. Before the show in Berlin’s Olympic stadium, ONE had invited friends and supporters to a summer outside reception at the waterside.

In his short address, Germany director Tobias Kahler gave an account of his recent travels through Ghana and Nigeria where he witnessed the progress that development cooperation can achieve. The simple possibility to cultivate and trade with pineapples, for example, started a chain reaction which irrevocably changed the lives of a whole community for the better. ONE’s CEO David Lane focused on the national election which is to be held in Germany on September 27. Referring to experience made in the US with campaigns like “On the Record”, he recounted how mobilization of the American public was able to influence the presidential race. ONE Germany is campaigning in a similar way, asking voters for their signature to the “Article ONE” which urges the next federal government to boost development issues in their coalition treaty. To raise awareness for this campaign, we asked our guests to sign the Article ONE and had their photographs taken while doing so.

All in all, ONE staff members, politicians, artists, journalists and representatives from other NGOs spent a relaxed afternoon with plenty of time to engage in discussions on our issues before moving on to the stadium to enjoy the concert.

Twenty spirited ONE volunteers spent their afternoon in a much less relaxed, but certainly as exciting way: Thanks to U2’s commitment to ONE, we had the opportunity to inform people on progress and challenges concerning the fight against extreme poverty and recruit new ONE members before and after the concert. As at all the other venues in Europe and North America, we set up our ONE stand and photo booth where newly signed-up ONE supporters could have their picture taken while giving the future a big kiss. A number of those pictures were seen by a crowd of 90.000 when they appeared on the giant 360° screen above the stage that same night.

We managed to sign up a vast number of new ONE supporters that day, including quite a few who had come from other countries – like Greece, Denmark, Sweden, Israel, Spain and even Brazil – to see U2 on stage.

The band’s truly amazing performance thrilled ONE volunteers, our prominent supporters and the rest of the 90,000 fans alike, and we were all inspired by the political messages sent out during the show. An especially moving moment was Archbishop Tutu’s message that surely convinced many of the infinite power we have in our hands if we act together. Right afterwards, a message on the screen asked fans to join ONE by texting “KISS” to a short code – all over the dark stadium, glowing mobile lights attested to the immediate reaction. There were statements on other contemporary political focal points, too: U2 dedicated their classic “Sunday, bloody Sunday” to the suppressed oppositional movement in Iran, bathing the enormous stage in green light. Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi – the most courageous woman in the world, as Bono said – was honored by hundreds of people wearing her mask during “Walk On”, and some of them even walked on stage during that song. A special greeting went out to another Nobel Peace Prize winner: U2 and fans sang “Happy Birthday” for Nelson Mandela since he turned 91 that day.

We’ll have more updates about ONE’s efforts on the U2 tour soon!

-Carola Bieniek

One of my favourite moments of the U2 360 show is Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s stirring speech about taking action together as ONE. The Archbishop is ONE’s international patron, and has more authority to talk about the power of collective action than just about anyone. It is humbling to hear him say that as we take action against extreme poverty we are proving ourselves to be the same people as those who have engaged in other great humanitarian movements, like the struggle to end apartheid which he championed.

I’m including a video here from the folks at U2.com, but really you have to be there to feel the impact. As a ONE campaigner it just floors you.