Month: September 2017

I think the building of our online community is growing stronger with each session. In the beginning it was a process to figure out how everything operated and how the class was going to be run. However, over the weeks I believe our virtual community has grown in terms of better understanding and functionality. As we review readings from different examples of communities, we learn what has worked in the past and what has not. Understanding the how to communicate better with one another through blog posts and slack has also helped better the community by allowing for clearer channels of communication for both the students and the teachers.

-Maureen

Just like communities we have been talking about, our class as a virtual community has a common goal.  We meet and talk with one another just as any other community- meeting online does not stop our common goal.  A concern to our community is that everyone needs to be fully committed to our goal as researchers and students. Just as any community, it is important that everyone participates and believes in the goal.

-Savannah

I clearly have a computer. This is actually my third computer and the 5th or so that I have used regularly. I do not have a computer because I find them easy or stress reducing. Perhaps the easiest way for my stress level to go from relaxed to swearing and wanting to break something is encountering problems with a computer. So many important things are required to be done on computers. Some things like applying for FAFSA are simply. Some things like fixing the mistakes I made when applying for FAFSA are much harder.

Learning to use a new website is one of the worst. One easy problem is loosing the information that I have to log in. Somehow I think that I do not have to write things down if people email me the necessary information. I tend to be very wrong when I make this assumption. Finding a website or finding a link that someone sent me does not have to be a trying experience and I understand how it makes sense that this would be an easy process but that idea does not reflect my personal experience. My personal experience when it comes to computers most closely reflects Murphy’s Law.

However, I am young, I still find that given enough time and/or hand-holding I will  learn how to use technology. But it gives me no pleasure to do this. My simple wish is akin to the wish that the Luddites or the Amish. Technology is okay now but surely we do not need to go any further.

Dear Wendell Berry, I know that you will likely never read this and for that I wish that I could be you and live a life that is free from computers and technological progression.  But, I am sure you understand that when it comes to the modern college student they are hopelessly trapped if they do not want to have a computer.

 I would like to study an intentional community that is open to both visitors and new members. This gives off the intention of openness and a lack of exclusivity which I believe to be an important quality within a community. One of my main interests when studying a particular community would be their sustainability methods. This could range from their dietary habits and food producing methods to their energy sources and technologies. There are some communities that run strictly on renewable energy sources while others are strictly producing their own food and cutting out the negative impacts of importing foods. These aspects are especially interesting when observing what methods of renewable resources are used and how the production of food can bring the community closer while also producing a naturally functioning environment. I think it would also be interesting to study an egalitarian society where everyone is seen as equals, with no one person in charge of another. It would be very interesting to see how members of this type of society deals with conflict and making decisions on a daily basis. I believe that the study of an egalitarian community that practices different methods of sustainability would prove to be very interesting and give an insight into how people living outside these communities could live in a more environmentally and socially conscious way. I would hope to achieve this study by either visiting a community or interviewing members of the community. Being able to visit this kind of community would help to better understand how they function on a daily basis and what methods they use to do so. Being able to converse with members of the community would allow us to understand the mindsets of the people who live within them. Understanding what aspects drew these people in and what they like most about living in it. 

For the longest time I had always assumed that intentional communities all consisted of generally the same thing. However, upon further research it has become clear that each community is unique with its varying interests and ways of life. There are some communities that live in rural areas while some can be found in the heart of cities. Many of these communities have varying interests that attract their members such as sustainability, religion, government systems, and overall ways of life. Each community has its own ideas of a preferred way of life that allows its members to be apart of that vision. 

-Maureen

In this course, I plan to study a sustainable living community called Paradise located in Sarasota, Fl. The community consists of a house shared among multiple individuals on a 1/3 acre property. It is run on a consensus decision making process, without a single leader or core leadership group. It seems to still be gaining its footing, as the activities at this point include only a community potluck and house meeting once a week. Members are expected to do work for the community two times a week, likely involving gardening tasks.
This community is ideal for me as a first-time approach for many reasons. Besides being nearby, it operates on a small scale. I can easily get to know all those involved and observe the daily operation of the household. The community focuses on sustainable living, a plant-based diet being an important part of that choice. This is a lifestyle choice I feel very passionately about, and I look forward to the chance to see how it can be adopted on a community level. However, I aim to keep an open mind to all the aspects of the community, not just focusing on plant-based eating.
Considering that the community is still getting itself established, I want to ask the homeowner how she plans to incorporate members and create a sense of place for all. This is an issue which my studies in this class will help to address, and perhaps I can help her to develop a strategy which defines the community but also leaves flexibility for residents to collectively make change.
I hope to spend time visiting the house and getting to know it before asking to spend a weekend as a guest in order to become more immersed in the experience. During all this time, I will make observations and take notes. Emily and I will share ideas with each other at the end of each visit. We will review notes and photos and discuss what our key observations were. We will also update the community members and encourage them to ask us question. We will fully express and explain our vision for the project, making sure to ask about their thoughts and feelings throughout the process.
As we have yet to contact any community members, I have not learned much. However, I did not expect it to be so easy to find an intentional community nearby. I imagined a community as more large and well-recognized. But this house is not a widely known place. In this respect, I have learned that communities come in all sizes and forms. Furthermore, part of what has allowed this house to become a community is the ability to post its intention and mission online on the fellowship for intentional community directory page. In this way, online mediums can help physical communities to become established.

Glad this started working for me, it took a while to get my password reset for some reason.

So far, reading “The Virtual Community” has been an interesting read. Many parts of it leave me without a conclusion but moreso with a lot of information about how these different online communities were started, which is great, but I haven’t come to an informed assessment on what it all means quite yet.  The intentions behind every community vary greatly from small ones based on discussion boards to people pushing the PC movement foreword. 

I’m excited to start talking with Savannah about what her interests are in what communities she would like to study, I think we can find a good common ground having come from the same prerequisite class last semester that was based on the principle of democracy.

For now, I’m going to keep reading and trying to put together the core ideas of “The Virtual Community”.

 

For my COPLAC Into the Woods project, I am going to be studying the Garden of Eden in Arlington, Texas.

Because I am working on this project on my own, it was at first difficult to get a grasp on what type of community I wanted to study and how to locate a community like that nearby.  However, by searching in and around Wichita Falls, I got some results.

During my search, I decided to look at the Garden of Eden, and it was quite literally a Garden of Eden.  The community has achieved so much even though they have only been active for seven years.  There was just a wealth of information present and I was incredibly excited to learn more.

I would like to study the Garden of Eden, and more specifically, I would like to look at the “Garden of Eden 2.0,” which the group hopes to create soon. I would also like to travel to the Garden of Eden and take my own photographs to put up on the blog later.

I think a more involved look at their lifestyle and community would give not only me but others a better look at the Garden of Eden.  That’s why I hope to talk to several different members and get a complete view of the community. At least – that’s my hope for right now.

I’ve learned so far that I really like the idea of a community, and I especially like all the things that a community can achieve. Like at the Garden of Eden, those who live in the community have saved 350,000 pounds of trash from the landfill annually and the cost of living is under $1 a day per person. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Successful communities are just that – successful – but it’s amazing to look at how much work they have put into being just that. I’ve learned that’s why there’s only so many thriving communities today. It takes a lot of work.

I look forward to learning more about the Garden of Eden and the fantastic lifestyle the community members lead. I feel like I’ll be more and more awestruck as the semester progresses – and probably find myself wanting to join a community more and more.

-Lane

Wow, it was confusing to get here! I have so many different passwords and usernames to remember, but I’m glad we have various communication tools and I was able to get a quick response from Dr. Schacht on Slack.

Initially I was very nervous about this course, unsure of what intentional communities were exactly and how we were supposed to research them.  So far, the class sessions have been really great and everyone seems really engaged in the topic. I feel that I have a basic background knowledge from a previous class that gives me a slightly different perspective on this class.

Cody and I are teammates for the final website project and we’ve been talking to each other about what kind of community particularly interests the other. I’ve really wanted to have the opportunity to speak one on one to these community members or leaders and be able to hear directly from them how they view themselves as a collective group within the larger community. Studying an inactive group does not interest me as much, although I’m not completely opposed to the idea. I initially thought that the Abbey of Genesee could be an interesting community to study but it seems as though they have a very well-documented history and presence in the community, not to mention, website. After trying to find some local communities, I stumbled across an article posted online by the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle about an intentional community called Ant Hill. Upon further research, I found that the co-op was shut down in 2015 due to “lack of interest” (rocwiki.org/Ant_Hill_Cooperative). My friend told me about the Genesee Valley Cooperative close by. I intend on contacting one of the members as he is a fellow student at SUNY Geneseo, and seeing how much information he has available and what I can do with that. I will double check with Cody about what he would like to research and see where we can compromise.

A complication in our research might be that neither Cody nor I have a car. However, both of us have friends with cars and might be able to get out and talk to people if we need to. Luckily, it’s 2017 and we have the Internet! We can always reach out to people via e-mail, Facebook, and other mediums. I’m really excited to figure out which community we’d like to study and start compiling as much information as possible. Making this information accessible will help small communities as they begin to spring up all over the state and the country.