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August 2009 
From Chaos To Clarity ... We Hope!
Posted on Jun 12th, 2008
by 
asecondlifediary
asecondlifediary
EACH WEEKEND our fledging community has decided that we will get together for either a meeting or just a catch up and last weekend was only our second time of all being together in any number. And what a schamozzle it was!
Getting an international community together is a bit of a challenge as it is and our 2pm SL time slot means it is 5pm Sunday afternoon for Cal who is in Canada; 11pm for Archer, Artic and Porena who are in Europe and 7am for the Australians. One of our members, Sojourner is in the U.S. somewhere and I'm not sure what time it was for him - maybe 2pm or 5pm so quite convenient.
I slept in, so when Cal phoned me on my landline, I rushed to the computer, completely groggy and half cross-eyed! I had intended to be better-prepared and so I was off to a bad start. On top of that we had a guest, who everyone later agreed must have been drunk as they kept making cracks about us all taking our clothes off and dancing!
Others kept going afk (away from keyboard) - to get a coffee; go to the toilet; let their cat out; bring their cat in; pacify their wife who was wanting attention etc., etc., etc.
A couple of members had been working hard all week on their individual projects and they were keen to tell us their progress, but one of them in particular got stroppy because they felt people weren't paying proper attention and they went off in a huff.
Anyway, to cut a long story short - we all agreed it had been pandemonium and we really did need to get our act together if people weren't going to get frustrated and stop coming. As it was after an hour or so, people started wandering off to bed or other commitments and it was left to just three of us to de-brief and work out where we had gone wrong.
With just the three of us, it was easy to have a rational conversation and we lay down a few guidelines we thought would make it easier for people to follow the flow of conversation in the future. Number One was the democratic sharing around of a TALKING STICK which meant that everybody else had to stay quiet for the several minutes that the appointed person had the talking stick. We decided we would encourage people to type, "OK" to signify that they had heard what had been said, or acknowledge that it was their turn to talk.
In the cyber world, it can sometimes be hard to know if the other person is typing a treatise for you to read, or has gone to sleep so we thought it would certainly help the flow of conversation if people typed quicker, shorter sentences to 'feed' people instead of typing for five minutes and then everyone have a big rush to read that big chunk of text before the next chunk was spat out.
Another conclusion we came to was that the energy of our community up until now has been provided by those of us who are more involved in the Administration side of things - me putting up a Welcome Sign and Daily News bulletin board; Archer working on scripting issues; and Artic focused on promotion and public relations (supported by Gem and Mikele).
The time has now come for the 'big boys' to pony up their expertise and energy and focus our attention on, "Why are we there?" "What do we want to achieve by having an intentional community devoted to living simply in nature?" What kind of organisations do we want to be allied to? What are we trying to teach people? What do we have to offer?
Cal, Porena, Boron and Sojourner are going to be getting together sometime soon, so they can discuss these issues and come back to the larger group with some kind of information and focus for us.
When Cal and I first got together, we joked that I was steering our relationship and Cal was in charge of the accelerator. Now that we are forming a community together, that same analogy holds true - except that it isn't just Cal and I involved - it is a community of ten other people.
The 'Administrative' part of our group have been revving the engine and roaring, ready to go but until the 'Environmental' team get their act together and inspire us to action, we don't really have a place to go to! Cal has been in touch with another like-minded community in SL and they will be coming on a tour soon and I'm looking forward to that. In the meantime, I'm going to be hosting smaller-scale tours on a daily basis just to practise my skills in that area.
There is so much happening on our beautiful island - I am really inspired. With each little step, we get closer to being a polished 'product' and as I was saying to Porena the other night, there's no reason our model, once we have created it, can't be used in the 'real' world.
We will be creating a 'kitty' on the island soon, so everyone can flip some money into it for ongoing projects - the development of our vegetable garden etc. When I go into SL tonight, I'm off to buy some bees and a beehive - both for honey and the production of beeswax for candles, so we can establish a little 'cottage industry'.
I think we are slowly getting to know one another, and that's really exciting to me, but I am also very aware of my own tendency to 'hurry things along' and I have to remind myself not to push too much or else I will alienate people.
Okay - that's enough from me. Maybe I will get one of the other members to place the next entry here. Stay tuned!
(Photo above: Mikele and I on top of our mountain, which I named Mount Gandhi when I was building it).
Access: PublicTagged with: Second Life, Intentional Community, Cottage Industry, Environmental Team, Communications, Mount Gandhi
I participated in the meeting and pretty much agree with Mia. You did a good job on extracting the clarity bits, I take my hat off to you!. I have done a learning report on my own blog. After all - you always get an opportunity to learn, even if things do not take off like you hoped!
See my blog