thanks Sager for a great post - really great amusing read whilst also having great content. Am new to the site after having read the book, so to speak. Haven’t read a quarter of the articles yet, but those I have read i’ve found really useful. I am moving to another area of Britain next year hopefully and your First Friday idea will be a lovely way to get to know people in the new area. also when looking for a new home there I have many more ideas of what I need to look for in a potential new home than I had before. Thanks again and good luck with your community activities.
Good luck with your move and subsequent community-building efforts. Let us know here how they go.
In reading through this "community post" I am trying to relate it to my own situation, very different from SagerXX and his wife.
When you live in a small rural town the community is much stronger, and the sub communities within are very receptive to input and moderate change.
I'm trying to raise awareness about diet, and get my modest farm to table business launched. Since I'm not scaled up enough yet to quit my day job, but have crops coming into harvest, I have chosen to give them to my Church community. We have an informal Bluegrass music service twice a month and I have been bringing 25# of asparagus for people for free while the harvest is ongoing. And I have seen others bringing some produce to the church. I figure that slowly we might build a subcommunity of folks who appreciate organic veggies, and eventually turn that into a community market which is lacking where we live.
Although I have a profit motive attached to my benevolence, I guess this might count as community building.
OOG, you will know when you have crossed the "line of benevolence" when your community rolls up their windows or otherwise turns away when you approach with the third bushel of august zucchini.
Wow, all that asparagus. "I wish you were my neighbor"(to be sung to the tune of Mr. Rogers neighborhood)
I was really looking for info on building more community after leaving the Rowe conf and really glad this was reposted as I hadn't seen it before. Some great ideas Sager thanks for the tips.
Hi,
So the irony of my situation is that I am Social Studies teacher with the knowledge that my teacher's retirement is going to vanish, along with knowing for decades that the math simply does not work out for social security. So…one of the classes I teach is economics, and I have shown most of the Crash Course to that group of students.
Their reactions are varied, but in general, in the moment, while I have them away from their cell phones and electronic devices, the young minds do grasp the numbers and the severity of the predicament our society faces. I mentioned to a couple of them today that I was a bit embarrassed to have to continue to go over the curriculum vocab list, when the reality is I would so much more want to be teaching them real word experience they can apply to their future.
Unfortunately, much of the Crash Course material is still fringe, and the students accept, even like the fact that a teacher is willing to teach an economics course with "what if" slant to it. Those moments, those are the ones that I want to latch onto. More than older minds that have been molded to exist in a world of debt, distractions, and paper…the young minds will have their memories shaped by the experiences.
So, I just got word that one of my classes next year will be economics again. I think what I am going to do is talk to the grounds keeper here at the school and the ag department and see if there is a way that we can link economics and ag in a more meaningful way. Somehow combine the dry world of textbook econ with real world wealth about sustainability and self reliance.
For what it is worth, years ago…I went to out principal at the time, showed him some of the numbers associated with the Crash Course and made the plea that all of our students need to be taking ag classes. In a way, it was a coping mechanism for me…a teacher, trying to find ways of reaching more people about what is coming.
So I will try this small vein as well. Who knows…maybe in the fall…Mr. Barney's Econ students will be working with the Ag classes (cross your fingers) putting in some apple/pear trees. IF anything develops, I will keep you informed.
Jason