Web Features
The founder of Enright Ridge Urban Ecovillage describes what it’s like to be criticized, marginalized, stripped of leadership responsibilities, and given the opportunity to explore a new role.
In a healthy community, leadership and followship are equally important roles, each with vital skill sets that can assure effective teamwork.
The author identifies additional leadership skills, cautions against blind followship, and reflects on the many types of power in cooperative groups.
A community member transcends a feeling of powerlessness when he inadvertently comes up with a brilliant idea about how to organize cooking groups, and others join him in implementing it.
Some saw this radical environmental education program as a “cult,” others as an intensely focused experience of challenge and growth. Had participants lost their individuality, or gained a new sense of self?
Also in This Issue (Print Version Only)
· THOUGHTS ON POWER
The editor reflects on thunderstorms, empowerment, and magazine submissions.
· REFLECTIONS FROM A FELLOW COMMUNITY MEMBER
Deborah Jordan
· MONEY, POWER, AND PROCESS: How We Pulled the Plug on Consensus
Kees Kolf
The creators and owners of Port Townsend EcoVillage wrestle with power imbalances as they temporarily suspend consensus process in order to move their cooperative group project forward.
· ECOVILLAGE RESIDENT REFLECTIONS
Bekka Bloom & Marc Weinblatt & Ruth Baldwin
· POWER, DYSFUNCTION, COMMUNITY BREAKDOWN, AND VISION AT ECOINSTITUTE: A Document from the Struggle
Troy Bell
A group in the throes of Founder’s Syndrome reconsiders its relationship with its charismatic leader as he nears the end of his troubled tenure.
· DANCING WITH DISCOMFORT: Thoughts on Empowerment from a Reluctantly Powerful Person
Welcomed back into her childhood community as an adult, the author comes to terms not only with her intrinsic reluctance to be in charge of anything, but also with her own inherent power.
· THE AWESOME POWER OF THE NON-CONSENTING VOICE
Balancing the urge to express ourselves with respect for the history and time investments of a group can help consensus be fun and effective, rather than dreadful and debilitating.
· THE POWER OF PROCESS: How WindSong Created its Community Contribution System
Andrea Welling
A cohousing community employs a Consensus Process for Complex Topics to tackle a perennially difficult area and create an effective Community Contribution System.
Voices
· LETTERS/CORRECTIONS
Julie Genser
· PUBLISHER'S NOTE: THREE ESSENTIAL AGREEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE GROUPS
· GROUP PROCESS: THE STRAW POLL THAT BROKE THE CAMEL’S BACK
· COMMUNITY CHALLENGES: BURSTING THE BUBBLE: The Challenges of Progressive Community Living in the Rural South
Doug Alderson
· COMMUNITY JOURNEYS: AD ASTRA PER ASPERA: Through Adversity to the Stars—A Community Member’s Passage to India and Back
Chelsea Cooley
· CREATING COMMUNITY WHERE YOU ARE: MOON VALLEY: A Community on the Horizon?
Bob Glotzbach
· FORMING COMMUNITY: AFFORDING A NEW COMMUNITY: a Story of Persistence
Merry Hall
