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community size
August 2009 
Getting To Know One Another
Posted on Jul 12th, 2008
by 
asecondlifediary
asecondlifediary
YESTERDAY was the first time that I thought, "Our group is now getting to the size where I am starting to not know our new members." In the last week or so, we have had six people join our community - the last two of whom I haven't even met, much less get to know.
This is slightly unsettling for me as I've always felt that I've got it 'under control' (inasmuchas knowing everyone and everything that is going on). Visitor numbers are increasing, with over 100 having been recorded in the past couple of weeks. Even group members have observed that there always seems to be someone on the island these days.
Our experiment with being marooned on the island has also been relatively successful, with Daya being the most enthusiastic and conscientious about being around. She is such an avid supporter of the island and has provided us with the most beautiful 'flying submarine' vessel, designed very much in the Jules Verne style with Dunesque paintings inside. It has proven to be a popular gathering spot and has given our community a kind of 'clubhouse' for gathering in.
There was quite a bit of discussion about whether we should have it on the island as it is most certainly not 'natural' but I fell in love with it (as did everyone else) and even Cal couldn't deny its charms. Consequently, we compromised and allowed it on to the sim, but located it up underneath our Gaia Galleria skybox, so it's not immediately visible to the casual visitor.
We are still going through the process of deciding what we are about and what we want to achieve with our community. Porena, on our NING site, mentions how we are endeavouring to create a community which will be able to deal with the end of the oil age, but at this stage we haven't done a thing about being political or activist about anything to do with the oil industry. I'm not even sure that the majority of the community are even that political.
Cal, Porena and Sojourner are probably the most concerned about environmental issues - as in doing anything specific on the issue. Everyone else is 'aware' but not dedicated (at least as far as I can tell). No raging activists in our group! Although both Porena and Harps have written books on the subject of the environment and sustainability - which I will highlight in an upcoming blog.
For the moment, we are still going slowly, slowly, slowly in building our community - "Two Truth and a Lie" at last week's weekly gathering and 'Hide & Seek' this week. All fun and games. Which is a good balance from the rather weighty matters of previous meetings - "What do we stand for?" and "What is our goal?"
It's always a balancing act between encouraging people to participate in community building and allowing them to enjoy their experience of Second Life, which is either an escapist forum or a very useful social experiment opportunity.
We've also put on an exhibition of our community members' photographs, which is another way for us to get to know one another a bit more, ALTHOUGH most members have chosen to present Second Life pics, rather than real life photos. Again, Daya has jumped in and put on a slide show of her hang gliding activities.
Actually Daya deserves special mention for her enthusiastic endorsement of our island - she is constantly inviting friends and acquaintances over and was the very first person to put up her hand when we suggested actually being 'marooned' on the island for the whole month of July. She has gotten into the spirit of making the island her home and has put fish into the lake, and shares her beautiful craft as a home base for us, and seems to be always there to greet visitors as well.
In coming weeks, I will feature our members, week by week, so you get to meet them all.
As a teaser, above is a photo collage that our lovely Soj put together for the exhibition.
Access: PublicTagged with: Second Life, community size, knowing one another, photo exhibition, enthusiastic support
