Not With a Bang but a Whisper

by Raven

I’m going to let you in on a sad little secret.  The Federation of Egalitarian Communities (FEC) is pretty much functionally gone.  Not that it can’t be revived; but right now there don’t seem to be enough folks that want to do that.  I mentioned this briefly in one of my Friday Facebook summary posts, saying “I was hoping it would resolve itself,” but it doesn’t seem to have happened.

This began with the January, 2024, Assembly, a meeting where usually FEC delegates from member communities meet to work out things related to the FEC.  This meeting seemed more important than most because the FEC was in a bit of legal and financial trouble, mostly because no one had been keeping up with the paperwork.  It didn’t seem that serious, just some things we had to do to get the organization back on track.  I went because I was (and I still am) in a community that does income-sharing and I wanted it to become part of the FEC.

The first hint of real trouble came when I mentioned that in my check-in and someone said, “Let’s first see if there is going to continue to be an FEC.”  I soon found out that some folks at Acorn were upset with the way that they thought Twin Oaks was treating them (the situation is very complicated) and weren’t sure they wanted to be in an organization with them, and at least one of the delegates from East Wind was still upset with the way that they thought that East Wind was treated at the 2018 Assembly. (I alluded to this in my introduction to the Social Technology workshop that preceded the 2019 Assembly. Here’s a couple of former East Wind members discussing that Assembly–that topic starts just after minute 41.)

East Wind Community (their 50th anniversary picture)

To further complicate things, the delegates from East Wind and the delegate from Glomus Commune were actually leaving their communities and it wasn’t clear who, if anyone, was going to replace them.

Tigger, from Twin Oaks, took on the legal and financial difficulties–not as a delegate, which he wasn’t, but as someone prepared to do the paperwork so that the organization could be revived, and, as far as I can tell, he did that.  The problem is that I was on the phone the next bunch of times that an FEC conference call was scheduled and I was the only one there.  

I finally heard from an Acorn delegate that they had not heard from any other delegates from the other communities, especially Twin Oaks and East Wind.  I’m not sure that the East Wind delegates ever got replaced and I know that the person who was the main Twin Oaks delegate has gotten super busy and has very little time for anything except their work.

The Acorn crew (August, 2023)

I went to the Communities Conference and the Convergence of Intentional Communities hoping to find out what was going on, but there was no one to ask.  I suspect that most folks at Acorn and Twin Oaks (especially at Twin Oaks since the fire) are so busy with stuff at their communities that very few people think of the FEC.  And there was no one at the Conference that I saw who was from East Wind–which is very unusual and I saw as a bad sign.

Twin Oaks folks (45th anniversary picture)

Maybe there are things going on behind the scenes, but I suspect not.  I think that very few people in the communes are concerned at all about the FEC and it makes me very sad.

The FEC was a wonderful and vibrant organization for a long time.  (I have documented its history from the 1960s and 1970s all the way to “Tens and Teens”.)  I’m so sorry to watch it fade away.  Hopefully, it will get revived at some point.  At least, I wish.