A tent city in Point State Park. An anything-that-floats protest navy in the Allegheny River. A contingent of 192 clergy, each holding a sign of one of the world's sovereign nations.

Those were just some of the ideas that bubbled up yesterday at First Unitarian Church in Shadyside during an organizing meeting for groups planning to protest the G-20 world economic leaders' summit here in September.

This first of several planning sessions sponsored by the Thomas Merton Center for Peace and Justice pulled in about 60 people representing a wide range of activist groups, from anarchists and anti-war organizations to the United Electrical Workers union and the American Civil Liberties Union.

"I can't remember this many groups coming together on one issue in many, many years," said longtime peace activist Molly Rush.

Besides Ms. Rush, the group drew several other old hands in the local activist community, including military spending opponent Vincent Eirene, anti-hunger advocate Joni Rabinowitz, community organizer Barney Oursler and folk singer Anne Feeney.

But it attracted a significant contingent of younger people, too, especially those representing the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project, which already is distributing fliers, organizing housing and gathering space for what could be hundreds of outside protesters.

With the U.S. Secret Service and local police preparing for possible violence during the G-20 event, one participant at yesterday's meeting warned against "playing into the media's good-protester, bad-protester dichotomy."

But it was clear there were disagreements on tactics even among those present.

"We should start with prayer and education," one woman said, "and emphasize active pre-emptive nonviolence and civil disobedience."

But a younger man said later he preferred a more confrontational approach: "I guess my goal is to undermine this summit through subversive tactics."

Harvey Holtz, a sociology professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania who helped elicit the group's goals, said the summit of world leaders will be an opportunity to teach people "how this current economic crisis developed and who benefited and who didn't.

"I call this event 'Pittsburgh draws a line in the sand' -- and we will contest the G-20."

Michael Drohan, Merton Center board president, said it will also be a time to remind everyone of Americans' rights to assemble and protest peaceably.

"Recently, our government has made a lot of hay out of the way the Iranian government has cracked down on dissenters, and I think we should hold our government accountable for permitting dissent in Pittsburgh."