Re: Membership increase after land purchase
From: Rob Sandelin (floriferousmsn.com)
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:27:41 -0700 (PDT)
The behavior of "members in the wings" once a commitment is made varies
greatly and I would be cautious about setting up expectations for a
particular outcome based upon one or another groups experiences. In my
experience there are two basic dynamics involved. One has to do with
personal commitment of money and real time and reality the other has to do
with location and how that fits a particular life. 

 There is a metaphor of a garden which I use a lot to describe living in
community.  Most everyone thinks a garden is a good idea and supports the
idea. Several people will eat food from the garden. It takes leadership and
continuing time commitment to make the garden happen and sometimes there is
not enough of that to support having a garden, so even though it is a well
supported idea and people would use it, it lacks the critical piece to make
to succeed.

Once the garden moves from an idea to reality, and people start eating food
from it, it's much easier to find continuing time commitment support than
when it was just an idea. So there is a bridge of time commitment and
leadership needed to get from idea to reality.  The people that make this
bridge need to be made of resilient stuff, have time to commitment, are not
easily deterred, and have strong leadership and communication skills or
commitment to build those.  If you have that, anything is possible.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood Resident for 18 years 


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