Sustaining the dream
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Contents |
[edit] Meetings
This is a stub. Please discuss issues around meetings: how to have successful ones; special techniques; roles; what happens when they go wrong etc etc.
[edit] Communication
This is a stub. Communication is critical in community - what are the techniques which make it work? What are the common problems and how to solve them? Please expand
[edit] Group dynamics
This is a stub. What are 'group dynamics'? How do they work? What should you look out for? Please expand.
[edit] Children
This is a stub. How does it work for children in community? Schooling v. deschooling, parenting styles, extent to which family units have their own autonomy etc etc. These can be very contentious issues - please discuss.
[edit] Transition to adulthood
This is a stub. Is transition to adulthood treated any differently in a community? When should young people become members in their own right? Should young people be encouraged to go out and explore the wider world or stay in the community? Please discuss further.
[edit] Gender issues
This is a stub. What are the gender issues which come up in community? Patriarchy/Matriarchy? Does or should gender influence who does what work, what approaches are taken to things etc etc? Please expand on these ideas.
[edit] Earning an income
Making Money
Communities tend to have space, if nothing else, and this can be put to good use to create an income, whether this involves growing or farming of one sort or another, community composting, storing other people’s stuff, renting out space for indoor or outdoor activities, setting up renewable energy systems (or growing/producing fuel), or, in the near future, becoming carbon brokers!
Community businesses have also included fixing up woodburners, running all kinds of courses and providing conference space, making yurts, running printing businesses, running electricians’ businesses, running bakeries,designing and producing specialist electronic instruments, woodland skills etc etc. These tend to rely on a small group of individuals who have the necessary skills and experience and who are keen to carry on that kind of work: they tend to need a stable environment with a slow turnover to be able to sustain themselves, although a set-up with trustees sometimes gives the overall stability required when members turn over more rapidly. In some cases, people have taken businesses away with them when they leave if the community hasn’t wanted to retain them.
In some cases, a business can take advantage of the lifestyle itself to offer information, courses or experience: notable examples are Findhorn, the Centre for Alternative Energy, Hockerton and the Low Impact Living Initiative at Redfield.
Traditionally, the structure of choice for a community business is a workers’ co-operative. If you want to find out more about this, visit UpStart’s excellent website http://www.upstart.coop and look at their briefing: ‘What’s a Workers Co-operative?’. From that brief:
Why should you start a workers’ co-op?
There are presently estimated to be just over 2000 active workers co-ops in the UK, operating in almost every field of business. They are particularly prominent in ‘green’ businesses, such as wholefoods, recycled paper and organic food. Why should you consider starting one?
-Because it is a more secure and principled way to carry out a business idea
-Because it challenges the domination of people by capital
-Because it promotes more environmentally responsible management
-Because it builds the skills and self esteem of the people involved in it
-Because you do not have to answer to a boss, nor shoulder all the responsibility of being the boss
-Because you do not have to pay shareholders dividends out of the money you earn
-Because you can integrate political, ethical or religious principles into your work
-Because you can create employment for yourself without having to be rich first
-Because you can set flexible hours and conditions that work for you
Individuals within communities make money in all the ways people ‘outside’ do, either full-time, or more commonly part-time, either employed by someone else or self-employed or employed within the community (usually in the form of a worker’s co-op). Others survive on benefits, pensions, private incomes or mixtures of the above.
Out of all the patterns of work, working from home is becoming more popular, with crafts people, builders, editors and IT workers along with many others finding they can happily combine working from home with a communal lifestyle. Working full-time is the most difficult to sustain, unless it occurs in lumps, with gaps in which to contribute to the community.
[edit] Financial input
This is a stub. How do you manage the ongoing finances of the community? How do you pay the bills, share costs? How do you make it all fair, transparent, secure? How can you avoid putting significant financial power into the hands of one or two members - or doesn't this matter? How can you resolve financial matters equitably with the least amount of bureaucracy? Please give example of systems which have worked in different situations.
[edit] Putting work/energy in
This is a stub. How much work are people expected to put into the community? What is the pattern of this (so many hours a week?). What can you do to avoid burnout or freeloading? What is work? Making rotas work for you.
[edit] Health and disability issues
This is a stub. If work input is the hard currency of communal living, what happens if people become unable to contribute as much as they did? What is work (see Energy Input above), and what other inputs are there? What about policies for new members with disabilities? What provision does the community make for the health of its members? Please discuss.
[edit] Growing older
This is a stub. What happens when we get older and can't do as much physical work? Do discrepancies arise from the way a community is set up and the age or length of membership of individuals? Should communities strive for a wide demography, or all age gracefully together? How can older people integrate into a 'young' community and vice versa? Discuss.
