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Following the Social Technology Conference, the Federation of Egalitarian Communities held its 2019 Assembly–also at Twin Oaks. This year, unlike last year’s Assembly, it was a fairly easy and agreeable process.
Two very concrete accomplishments from the Assembly were passing the FEC budget for 2020 and changing Article 7 of the criteria for going from Community in Dialogue to Full Member Community.
The budget in process
The original first sentence in Article 7 was: “Have, at minimum, three members, none of whom are in a romantic relationship or family.” What we changed it to was: “Have, at minimum, five adult full members who have been in the community a minimum of six months, understand the community systems, and have access to equal participation in the community’s processes.”
This seemed more specific to us as well as more likely to make sure that new communities would be truly equitable.
We also explored a possible process for a community facing dissolution and looked at the Reforming Community status. We agreed to spend up to $2000 for support to reforming communities in the first two years of being a reforming community.
Finally, we agreed that Rejoice would remain the FEC secretary until after the Spring Assembly.
Rejoice (from the 2018 Assembly)
One of the best parts of the Assembly was getting to hang out with folks from various communities. This year we had a couple of folks from The Common Unity Project (TCUP) join us, as they are exploring being part of the FEC.
In the evenings during the Assembly, communities and projects did check ins, updating us and giving us more of a sense of what was going on around the FEC. We heard from Twin Oaks, Mimosa, The Common Unity Project, East Brook, East Wind, Acorn, and Cambia, as well as a report from Keenan (a Twin Oaker) about his plans for creating a community in Costa Rica.
It was nice to have such a low stress Assembly. I suspect that having the Social Technology Conference just before it really helped. I think we all left feeling good about what we accomplished.
The FEC delegates hanging out in Julia’s room
In the back: Julia (Twin Oaks), Raven (East Brook), Cody (East Wind), and Morning (Rainforest Commons)
In front: JB (East Wind), Maximus (East Brook), Rachael (East Brook), and Scott (Acorn)
Thanks for reading! This post was made possible by our patrons on Patreon. The Commune Life team works hard to bring you these stories about our lives in community, and that work couldn’t happen without support from our audience. So if you liked this article, and want to help us make more like it, head on over to https://www.patreon.com/communelife to join us!
First published on the East Wind Community YouTube channel January 23, 2018
Check out http://eastwind.org/ to learn about various DIY projects (agricultural, building, etc) and the income sharing social experiment that is East Wind Community.
Best seen in 720p! First time lapse experiment. Two days of work on the showerhouse back to back in August of 2017.
The FEC 2018 Assembly was difficult and contentious. There were accusations of racism, sexual misconduct, and transphobia. People denounced one another and the conference site had to be moved because of problems involving one of the communities. It was obvious that we needed to do something different.
Several of the folks involved decided to have a conference this year before the Assembly. The initial idea was that we would look at things like dealing with racism, how to do mediation, and other useful things. The organizers decided to call it the Social Technology Conference. It would be held in December at Twin Oaks. Here’s my report on what happened.
The actual conference focused primarily on dealing with racism and white supremacy with an emphasis on building connections and looking at how trauma makes doing all this difficult. We also had sessions on understanding consent, on how to do facilitation, on using ritual for healing, and on drumming and dancing to get us in our bodies.
Rachel, Evi, and Natalie
Our facilitators for the conference were Natalie, Evi, and Rachel. They worked closely with the Twin Oaks diversity team of Alexis, Bell, and Hailey. The facilitators began by looking at the stories that block our connection with each other and how our culture disrupts solidarity. We then looked at the role of trauma interfering with empathy. There was information on the biology of trauma, how it pulls us out of our normal “window of tolerance”, sending us into an alarm state that could escalate into the fight or flight response which often led to a state of “freeze” or collapse.
We then tried to look at strategies for self-regulation and how to build our capacity for listening and empathy. From there we began looking at white supremacy and how it interfered with our ability to be with each other and how it led to us using microaggressions, small racist behaviors, to defend ourselves. We looked at how we could support each other in changing and how we could make our communities more welcoming to people of color.
One of the unusual features of the conference was that, for the first time at Twin Oaks, there was People of Color Only space that existed for the time of the conference. Hailey, Bell, and Alexis were available to meet with people of color to look at their concerns.
Midway through the conference, we had a Liberation Arts Drumming session with Macaco, a Brazilian drummer from Charlottesville, Virginia, followed by us watching a video focused on the story of an African American man’s difficulties with a couple of our communities. We then had a four hour workshop with Amani from Soul Fire Farm, a community in Petersburgh, NY. She led us in looking at overt and covert white supremacy and how our communities could work to dismantle racism and white supremacy. Both she and the facilitators left us links to many resources.
Amani Some Resources
After this, we did work on building resilience, on looking at how to improve decision-making, as well as having the workshops on facilitation and ritual. The diversity team led a panel on racial justice and changes we could make in our communities. We ended the conference with a report back on next steps we planned to take in our communities, a closing circle, and a group photograph.
Thanks for reading! This post was made possible by our patrons on Patreon. The Commune Life team works hard to bring you these stories about our lives in community, and that work couldn’t happen without support from our audience. So if you liked this article, and want to help us make more like it, head on over to https://www.patreon.com/communelife to join us!
