ThrivingTheFuture – Episode 15 – Building a Thriving Community

We answer questions from listeners about our community.

Community and Building a Thriving Community

It’s important that we just do what we are doing, and people join of filter themselves out.
Perpend

How big is your community? 8-10 families.
Do you recruit? Not really. We invite people that we meet during the course of life that may share in our values.
Community will change, people may come and go. That is OK.

Workshops

We hold workshops once a month, usually at noon the second Saturday of the month.

We call these “No one is an expert, but we are still going to Get Stuff Done” workshops.

We do many activities together (see the detailed posts on the ThrivingTheFuture website). We have pressed apples into cider, processed chickens, ducks, and rabbits, toured each other’s gardens, helped chainsaw and clear logs.

For winter workshops, we have 2-3 topics, followed by a barter blanket. One of our members volunteers to present a topic.

Here we have a demo of screening lemon balm seeds.

Seed Swap

For our February workshop, we are doing a seed swap. Unlike the barter blanket, where you are swapping (perceived) value for value exchange, in the seed swap we take turns and say, for example, “I’ve got some autumn olive seed, who would like some?”
I’m bringing Milpa, perennial pollinators, tomatoes, autumn olive, dwarf moringa, kale, no heat jalapeño, and some tree seeds. Plus lots of elderberry cuttings.

This has become a popular late winter activity for us that we look forward to. Try it in your community of friends. It’s a great way to grow real community.

Maintaining Community

We have a weekly Telegram call for the core group. We discuss a topic that usually helps us to think about what we value. This builds and maintains community.

The weekly call is also a good opportunity to check up on everyone to make sure that they are OK. We reach out to a person if they drop off the radar.

Perpend also shares in this episode about his recent visit to a monastery and what he learned about community on that trip.