Introductions

Hi all, I came across Microsolidarity on Thursday when I attended a training session with Richard and Nati, via Zoom, at Rebel Wisdom. I felt inspired to follow up that session by learning more about Microsolidarity and getting involved in some way. It is all still very new to me, but it feels significant and I have learnt that my life works out best if I follow those flows. I look forward to meeting you all at some later point. Regards, Michael

Dear all,

After almost 10 months of trying to gain co-creative support for my project, I have decided to look for funding opportunities in order to build a professional team and respect the reality of the money world and that many are working hard to help projects like mine. Finding the right address is even not an easy task!

So it would be great if you could point me to a grant opening that deals with promoting local regenerative economies and building an architecture that enables synergized global engagement along.

It is actually a Spiritual, Digital, and Natural Capitalism Approach for the Wellbeing of All.

I propose a “for-benefit” (non-profit) business-service platform that is supporting homelands local regenerative economies in developing countries, based on involving solidarity networks and outlander from the addressed countries that are built together with a connection-space with local producers and their challenges, purchasing their regenerative products in bulk as consumer communities abroad without middlemen, etc.

For more information please check

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vePFf8ZRxzmsoHbD2A9FfzRvt7tG7bRq3-y_v3p0IWQ/edit#

@Richard D. Bartlett work has brought great people together here .. so If you think that is possible to form a team (legal, copywriting, Webdesign, animation and artworks, software development) to develop the platform-website together, then I can give it a new try :) .. i am open to all possibilities. Then we can arrange an introductory meeting.

Thank you very much!

Wael

Hi Josh, yes I'd to speak with your friend! I'll DM. Also, I haven't looked into mutual credit networks - will read up on CrowdPol and other programs. Thanks for the lead!

Hi Jen, I've a friend doing that sounds very similar to you (curator, producer, new media) out here in Italy. She's just rounded up a regional gig that involves AR and is looking for someone she can rely on to help with the AR stuff. She works with new groups that self select each time and was behind this project, I wonder if you'd be up for speaking with her about her current endeavours?

Re Thai pay, I'm also quite interested in balancing the resource graph so as to speak. You could perhaps look into mutual credit networks? I also think CrowdPol are trying to do something there with their Altruistic wallet but it's not live yet so no examples in action.

Hello, I'm a curator, producer, and new media artist based in Thailand. Originally from California. I've produced tech, art, and music festivals, as well as project managed AR, VR, and interactive web projects. I'm not part of any crews and am still researching/clarifying ideas around co-ops for myself, particularly tech/platform co-ops. Interested in learning about decision making and building trust between groups of people from different cultural backgrounds. I'm Thai-American myself and have worked in a few companies that'd pay 'expats' more than the Thai staff members doing the exact same work. I'm looking into structures (social/finanical/operational/etc) that ensure fair treatment and payment of all members equally, and examples of this in practice. Inspired by the students leading Thailand's current protests, and thinking about how to extend that political solidarity to other forms of co-organization.

Found my way here through the excellent microsolidarity article. Interested in: user generated storytelling, land rights issues, and learning from your experiments in microsolidarity

I would like to present to you finaly my project and the way it creates it's own dynamics by forming small groups on a common affair. I hope it reaches its target group to gain the needed support.

www.albaydar.earth

Hello! My focus is on regenerative world-building and the resilience of world-builders. My intention for joining this community is to find thinking and working partners, and learn from everyone.

I’m located just outside of Boulder, CO in the US.

Hi! I have been interested in intentional communities for a long time, since going to a summer camp modeled on kibbutzim. I teach & study collective intelligence in a mgmt dept for my day job, but what I really want to do is build community and promote collective consciousness/sense making. I hosted a brunch crew that met every Sunday for about a year before lockdown, no formal structure besides guiding philosophy. I am sad that we have since lost cohesion but I am supposed to move to London so would've had to start over anyway. I am lucky to also do pro bono mediation & facilitation on the side, which I have found to be very useful in community building.

I am joining this group because I want to get more seriously engaged in community building and I am looking for ideas and support.

Hi everyone
I've been part of a crew before I was even aware of that word. I live in South Africa and started a crew with a group of my friends called the Apocalypse Bookclub. It's a discussion and action group exploring what it might mean to grow regenerative culture in a time of societal collapse. I'll be joining the Practice Program in September, so looking forward to deepening my understanding and practice of Microsolidarity.

Such 'Gratitude' to link me here on this Journey Viola. I have such a good feeling after my recent post, that it will be the right spot to move from ahead ..

Good to see you here, Wael!

Now open

Welcome Wael!

Access to your Docs is working, except to this one: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nU8MnX7DaWXvYca8hFxkqTdTAsmU1hCczRyqn1zjaMI/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hhXGpL3mtqaKKU-pvbkTPihJ8ma_tNdOhWvDP0yHgDk/edit

I've landed here after Viola directed me to Microsolidarity when I introduced to here my concept about packs-commune which is very similar to @Richard D. Bartlett work. Even the number "8" of pack members is common :)
I came to the concept after longer intuitive and autodidactic contemplation .. I am a non-academic nor books-intellectual, just a Palestinian searching for the wrongness in the world for 15 years and become spiritual Economist and Learner. The meaning to be Palestinian turned my life into an infinite spiritual journey holding humanity and our planet within. Currently, I live in the south of Germany. I left Palestine beginning of this year after mental breakdown to heal and work on my vision. I did some findings finally which can flow in kinda of startup dealing with grassroots economic and solidarity economy. I am a creative cook and love to make people happy with my meals. My favorite is simple ones, like omelettes, creative salads, and ancient native seasonal food. My goal in life to support creating heaven on earth. I do not have a particular wish, as I feel that the energy of the good is supporting me. Maybe one wish, to unblock my true self to be able to speak about what I think. In 10 years, maybe before, I want to be a global conscious leader that co-operating with the collective people-earth agency.
Thanks for giving a place of charging. I will put the link to my concept draft as a reply .. it could be useful somehow.

Looking to connect, learn and share
Wael

Hello everyone,

I am Antonio, I am a facilitator and consultant on organization, strategy, and communication, based in Barcelona (Spain). For twenty years I have worked for many different networks: networks of cities, networks of universities, networks of libraries, etc. and also for all kind of organizations. I have also been an active member of Ouishare Spain. For my Ph.D. dissertation, I was involved with 15M/Occupy collectives, and also with very successful anarchists/cyberpunk organizations, researching how their imagination work differently from mainstream organizations.

I co-founded a year ago a pod call Pantheon Work. At his moment I am trying to promote microsolidarity between a few micro-companies (of 2 to 4 people) that I know because I worked well in the past with them (so trust is already there!).

I would like to learn from your experimentation with microsolidarity and share mine.

Hey Ulrich, before starting on the book I originally wrote an article called Neotribalism & The Conscious Change Collective. I've since moved away from a focus on the Neotribal side of things and it's accompanying aesthetic, as I've found that it's a term that tends to unnecessarily alienate quite a lot of folks. I'll attach it here as it's not actually published anywhere online just yet. Would be keen to hear your thoughts and feedback if you do check it out :D

Hi Joe, I'd love to read any of your writings. Besides the book, did you publish articles I could read? I checked the wikis you mentioned over in the "Roles" thread but could not easily find articles from you. Please let us know when the book is out.

Hi Everyone,

I'm Joe from Australia now based in Thailand.

I helped set up a congregation called Dok Rak (which means of flower of love in Thai) based in Chiang Mai and I've been learning all I can about Microsolidarity for the last few years. I'm nearly finished writing a book called A Collective Blooming which explores similar ideas. I also help to run a community cafe called The Tea Tree.

I've been keeping a low profile during the writing process, but now it's coming to an end I'm keen to connect in and co-create with other community cultivators out there. My intention for joining this group is learn more about other projects unfurling in this space and to meet the people involved in them.

Look forward to getting to know you more.

Big Love From Melbourne

Hi all,

I've been following these themes since learning about Loomio a few years ago (2016) when I was working with a network of engaged Buddhists trying to restructure away from authoritarian habits. I've since come to develop a much deeper interest in consent-based organizing and this idea of microsolidarity because I think that it may be a way to further develop and enact the principles that some of my musical heroes (e.g. Ornette Coleman, Pauline Oliveros) made happen through their music. I'm working with a new Buddhist community called Bhumisparsha to try and structure our sangha along these lines; I'm also an improvising trombonist and jazz writer currently based in Easthampton, MA, USA.

William - UK (Southwest) near Bristol.

Will update soon - Greetings all!

Hey everyone 👋🌊

Nice to meet you all, I'm working on a couple of projects so my links, details, blog posts and affiliations are made available at JoshAFairhead.com.

The projects I'd like to mention are LiminalVillage.com and Hackalong.io:
Liminal Village is a provisioned space that we're turning into an open innovation lab or techno perma hub in the Italian mountains/Ascoli. It's intended to enable people to work on personal, local and global states in parallel as a practice. We do this through a shared meme or narrative called hack-alongs which follows lunar sprint cycles and inherits values from its congregation aka the stories its participants share and appreciate with each-other. It also has a shared digital manifestation that aggregates a small collection of other hubs and collectives online to work together at higher levels through community run infrastructures. I'm personally really excited about the things starting to happen as the first crews from this congregation seem to be beginning to crystallise. Our work cadence is shortening and participation is increasing, all which feels like positive omens :)

I'm here because I really enjoyed Richards microsolidarity.cc terminology as it really helps explain the community building we've been doing since last April and it all feels very resonant with the culture we are building (Agnostic LunarPunk?). As hackalongs are an aggregation of networks, I'm here to make friends and work with people from this community as well as extend an invitation to cocreate with members of the hackalong congregation.

Looking forward to more great sorties that shape the tools which shape our global culture!

Warm hugs,

Josh

Hello all 👋

I'm Markus from Switzerland, I've been observing Enspiral from the outside for a couple years, and now joined this group to learn more about Microsolidarity and expand my network.

Currently I'm working remotely as backend engineer for GitLab. Before that I worked in a small local software development agency where we experimented with some self-management approaches (e.g. Sociocracy 3.0, and using Loomio). We were located at Impact Hub Zurich and also part of that whole community. Before that I worked in a small startup to foster political transparency and participation online, which had pretty limited success ;-)

My main interests are in technology, organizing, self-development, and spirituality. I'm looking for interesting meetups, workshops, conferences, retreats, and am also considering talking some people into starting a crew-like arrangement over the next year.

@Naomi Smith

I've just returned to Aotearoa - will you be visiting anytime soon?

Sorry Naomi, this message got lost in the dumpster fire that is my
inbox. Working towards inbox0 ATM, which is how I found it ;) Actually I
am in Aotearoa right now, but meeting up is not going to be simple.
Perhaps we could have a voice/ video chat using Big Blue Button? NZOSS
have an instance available for community use. If you set up an account
on their RocketChat instance, I drop in there daily, and we can
coordinate a time for a call. Details of both here:
https://nzoss.nz/covid-19-response-help-those-working-home

If you're on SSB and wanna connect, my key is
@AdUI5CuK/jgSvUUJG4MckZXNdkUvIFePLy/AQt7w6Z4=.ed25519

I haven't got myself set up on Scuttlebutt yet, but I am active in the
fediverse: @[email protected]

Hope our paths will cross sometime soon Strypey, we appear to share a reality tunnel. I've just returned to Aotearoa - will you be visiting anytime soon?
If you're on SSB and wanna connect, my key is @AdUI5CuK/jgSvUUJG4MckZXNdkUvIFePLy/AQt7w6Z4=.ed25519

I'm working to apply permaculture principles to sociodigital culture - currently working with the CoLab (perma.earth) in the Digital Circle there and networking glocal food movements a bit. Also have been designing for healthy social ecosystems and during some research once (I think it was watching a video from a talk at a Holochain meetup...) I heard a kiwi accent from the audience, which was you - asking a really poignant question. From then, I hoped we'd meet somewhere.

So, it's cool to see you making your way to this digital niche!
Ngā mihi nui
Naomi / Nomes

I'm Danyl Strype, from Aotearoa, based in China since a couple of years ago. I've been involved in a plethora of decentralized/ horizontal projects over the years, including various cultural projects like rainbow gatherings and community festivals, and activist projects like helping start Aotearoa Indymedia and various media centres and social centres, and Occupy where I first met Rich. I blog at Disintermedia.net.nz and maintain a wiki there as well as contributing to the P2P Foundation wiki and their Loomio groups, and helping out a bit with the Open App Ecosystem and PrivacyTools.io. I've been active in researching and testing federated network tech like the fediverse (eg helping with fediverse.party and a little bit with Socialhub), and more recently, jabber and Matrix chat networks. Most recently, I convened the VOICE team to test free code voice chat apps, and I'm helping out with community development for Vidcommons.org and WeDistribute.

I'm here because Rich's Microsolidarity proposal really struck a chord with me, I've been thinking a lot recently about needing to build more durable, trust-based working relationships, and earning a living from the work I do for the common good to make it more sustainable. I'm really excited by the idea of finding a solid crew and a congregation to be part of.

Hi. I'm Eric, currently based in Fairfax VA, USA, working remotely as a web developer for a health care administration company. I'm not a member of any crew or congregation, but somehow came across Loomio while doing research on co-op organizations. Reading Rich's book "Patterns for Decentralized Organising" gave me great insights on the evolution of the software engineering team I work in, especially on decision making and power dynamics. I consider myself fortunate to be working in a high-trust team, but also understand the limits it has operating within an established corporation.
I'm also involved in an activist group (Wolf-pac) focusing on campaign finance reform in US. I'd like to apply some of my learnings on decentralized organization and microsolidarity within the context of this activist group as well as to my team at work.

Hi. I'm Bernhard, currently living in Sydney, Australia, but originally from Vienna, Austria. Two tiny letters and 16.000 km difference. I am lecturing here at the Business School, but am also a contributor to Enspiral, having studied the network and its decentralized ways of working in the past.

I'm mostly interested in collaborative culture, diverse economies, and how to maintain healthy power dynamics between people. Together with two other people, I am part of a budding crew that wants to set-up a blended collaboration training and research project.

Rich's microsolidarity vocabulary has filled a void that I struggled to understand for some time. I believe that crews and congregations or people coming together in collective freelancing orgs and urban villages could play a big part in transforming our societies for the better.

This is also why I’m here. I’d like to connect with people, see what others are doing and possibly learn about the best crewing and congregating practices. Definitely up for a meta-learning crew.

Hi folks. My name's john. I'm from Midwest USA by way of Indianapolis (last 8 years) and now located Wellington, NZ.

My deep passion is for exploration, especially of ideas, but also very much places, music (I play, dance, listen...), cultures, and new connections with people.

My vocation centers around relationships and capacity development, walking alongside folks as they better their own lives and care for (the beings in) their surrounds. I do this work with Loomio—where, more practically, I'm working to support our groups' succes through training and cx, and comms and marketing—and Enspiral (a congregation).

I've been fortunate to be in a few crews, from a crew of nascent activists doing worker organizing, to the Equity Fellows, and—within Enspiral—a few of iterations, including a Care Pod that evolved the format of what we first called the Peer Incubator.

currently in crew calling itself a Care Pod; we come together fortnightly to do project kitchens and share & tells (something you made that you're proud of, or something that's inspired you or might bring about insights)

I'm supporting Enspiral to implement a system by which folks can easily form crews... in fact we started another crew around that project (as Working Groups can be crews too :P)

Happy to support folks here as time allows, and eager to see how Enspiral's efforts in this area can support people joining in Microsolidarity here.

Do you have any documentation I could look at?

You mean beyond the linked website at: https://www.organicfarm.org.nz/ ?

I don't, but you could try the national contact address at the bottom of this page: https://www.organicfarm.org.nz/contacts

Also I'm sure Soil and Health Assn. have detailed documentation, and I'm pretty sure they'd love to share it with you. The contact for a range of their people is here: https://organicnz.org.nz/contact/

Do you have any documentation I could look at? Would love to discuss more, can you email me at [email protected]?

Kia ora Drew, fellow PDC holder here :) I'd like to suggest a model you could take some inspiration from for your permaculture pods. The NZ Soil and Health Association runs an organic certification scheme for small growers, OrganicFarmNZ, which is organized in pods of growers with a local area. The growers in a pod peer review each others' methods for the certification, and in some cases the pods also serve as a local crew for organizing upskilling workshops etc.

I'm Drew from Denver, CO, USA. I'm organizing freelancers in Denver with intention to implement some microsolidarity structures. I'm also gearing up to run a Social Permaculture program late in 2019 with the aim to structure the whole thing around creating "pods" (crews) of practitioners who support each other in creating pods within their own contexts.

I have big dreams of implementing some kind of municipalism here in Denver, using the freelancer association as a way to bootstrap that effort. I'm also interested in co-housing and getting the collective houses in Denver more organized and in greater economic solidarity.

I do web tech work for my labor and am trying to find a way to be a consultant for this kind of organizational change work. I was deeply involved in the NYC chapter of Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Sandy (disaster relief org in NYC), Agile Learning Centers (K-12 self directed education micro schools), the Federation of Intentional Communities (FEC), and I ran a cooperative for a little bit that has since failed.

Hi all, I'm Mary from Brisbane, Australia. Working with interests across food systems, nutrition, agroecology, climate science, and decentralised technologies.

Part of a femme faerie ring/crew within ScuttleButt, and interested in getting microsolidarity bridging across different 'specialised' domains. ie. multi/transdisciplinary collabs.

Part of my learnings are across permaculture, food sovereignty, and climate / regenerative agriculture, and this weaves into experiments in software designs. Looking into wetland restoriation, landscape hydration with Natural Sequence Farming, and Food Sovereignty with La Via Campesina.

Hi everyone! I'm Patrick from Jacksonville, FL (USA), currently studying Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, PA. Within the Enspiral community org structure, I think I'd be classified as a "friend"?...

I've been observing Enspiral from the outside for a little over a year since first reading about it in a Aeon article discussing alternative models of intentional community. I eventually discovered that I had friends who were affiliated with the group - or specifically, one friend, Nancy Zamierowski, who graciously offered to help me get plugged in. Through Nancy, I've now had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with several of you, including Charley D. and John G., and hope to meet many of more of over the coming weeks and months!

I've got a very wide range of interests, which under normal circumstances I'd have trouble explaining the relationship between. Francesca Pick's essay from Better Work Together (Welcome to the Age of Participation), which I read only a week ago, was actually the first time I've seen them all presented in one place, as parts of a single global movement (who knew?!). I'm very much in that vein of thought, although my primary interest right now relates to how those various technologies and trends can be leveraged to address large-scale environmental issues like climate change. Fun fact - I actually met Nancy in Peru while she was helping some mutual friends of ours with a conservation project in the Amazon.

Ciao Melina and Mary! Convening communities of practice sounds full on awesome! I'm actively fostering both crews and congregations and am big on entrepreneurship and Holochain too - If it feels appealing I'd love to aggregate the three topics together :)

hello Melina! Nice to meet you! I've recently met @pospi too and see we potentially have a few overlaps in networks/interests ;) I'm keen for a holistic entrepreneurship/enviro crew too. I'm bridging networks across food systems, agroecology, climate science, food sovereignty, and decentralised web...

Hi all, I'm Mel from Melbourne and a new Enspiral contributor who's just learning their way around the network. A big theme of mine this year is "convening communities of practice" in my work - which is about network centred innovation, acceleration, mass collaboration events for social and environmental impact. I'm part of three crews:
- hihats which is a Melbourne grounded triad seeking to support one another this year
- futureweavers which is a SSB/Enspiral/external crew called by @pospi which is clarifying its intent
- optimistic realist faerie ring - which is a crew called by a SSB/Enspiral person which hasn't had its first convening

I'm also happy to be involved in a "entrepreneurship ecosystem" crew if one emerges.

Hi Anna, I've heard a lot about George. I have already been in contact with Alia Aurami and Will Van Inwagen and participated in a few Conversations over at Enlivening Edge.

Hi Ulrich, To support, spread and connect Laloux's work to a wider social field and to help create a movement, my husband George Por founded Enlivening Edge as an online magazine in 2015 where you can find ideas, inspiration and read about both good and not so good experiences when wanting to goTeal.

https://www.enliveningedge.org/. Having interviewed a few leaders in that field, I found that self-development and having access to someone or a group that supports individual self development is fundamental. It makes organising as a Teal organisation so much more effective.

Hi, I'm Uli from Stuttgart, Germany. My day job is as an software engineer and project manager at a large international company. I fell in love with Frederic Laloux's "Reinventing Organizations" over a year ago. I want to learn more about decentralized collaboration. I have made two feeble attempts at applying these concepts in two project situations and failed miserably, realizing I have much more learning to do. I am here in the hope of learning more and connecting with like-minded people.

I have been the lead admin of a large public wiki for almost 3 years and work there with a group of volunteers. Just a few weeks ago I have completed my certification program as senior community manager. Recently, I am hanging around in the forums of http://discourse.reinventingorganizations.com/.

more rad Hoosiers here, whaaa?!

I'm not sure I lived there long enough quite to fully claim that title, but my heart is certainly Hoosier after a good 8 years there with some awesome community.

Would love to hear more about your experience of Sociocracy; I work with Loomio which provides an open source tool for supporting groups to foster better decision-making and inclusive conversations that move towards clear outcomes online. I've attended one of SOFA's workshops, and have done some parallel research around organizational design a la cybernetics, so I'm curious to hear what you took out of their course and your experience of it generally if you'd care to share!

Hello everyone. I’m Kelly. I live in Des Moines, Iowa, USA. My last three years have been a winding, mountainous leg of a circuitous lifelong journey leading me here. These recent years have been a period filled with self-education, reflection and healing. Before this time I spent 20 years working as a student affairs administrator at two different large US research universities (here in Iowa and my home state of Indiana) and moonlighting as a community activist throughout those years. That activism has mainly been on the topics of sexual/gender identity and diversity & inclusion, and it includes founding a non-profit community center in 2003 still run by a volunteer board of directors. I left my higher ed career to start an online master’s program on digital currency and along the way helped start a local organization focused on cryptocurrency and blockchain education that operates with decentralized governance. I’ve spent the past year focused on being a family caregiver--part of that being elder care. I just completed a 9-week training on sociocracy and want to continue exploring the role of decision-making patterns and tools in building a better world. This includes both local organizing and online collaboration platforms. I’m not currently affiliated with any crews or congregations beyond my sociocracy training circle, though I do plan to join the sociocracy organization that trained me (SOFA). I want to figure out ways to support local and global activists working with intentional communities, permaculture, anti-violence, environmental justice, unconditional universal basic income, and human rights.

Microsolidarity resonates deeply with my past experiences in organizing. I look forward to the conversation here and meeting others with similar interests.

Hiya Rashid! I lived the last 8 years in Indianapolis. Really learned a lot there and had some great community but had to leave as the pollution was clashing with my partners recovery journey from some chronic health stuff. Whereabouts did you grow up/ hang around?

Service Design is super interesting to me, especially combined alongside social justice and organizing!

For other sparks of serendipity and connection, I also am in a crew with a fellow Enspiral human, game maker, and more... Joriam Philipe. You two might like to meet given your interests; Joriam is currently doing a bit of participatory process/ collaboration design with me at Enspiral, as we're both employed by that network

Hello all!
I'm Rashid currently living in Berlin, Germany since 2015. I was born in St. Louis and grew up in Indianapolis before getting my MFA in Transdisciplinary Design at Parsons The New School in NYC in 2013. I've been developing my practice in the area of social innovation by employing service design, design thinking, and other participatory methods with social justice framing and organizing tools. I'm here in tandem with an experiment called Society of Owners - a 3 month conceptual lab for young freelancers in Berlin who are asking "how might we reframe freelancers as social innovators?"

We are partnering with Smart Germany eG and Supermarkt Berlin. Website is planned to go live on May 25th!

I'm Josh from Montana, USA. I live in a little rural town of about 600 people. I'm the president of our local Grange (a community service org for rural communities), I sit on the board of a kombucha brewing worker cooperative that I helped some friends set up, I'm the content manger for the Grassroots Economic Organizing website (geo.coop), and I'm working with some people in town to start a housing co-op centered on elder care.

I'm Rich from New Zealand, currently transferring my sense of "home" to somewhere in Europe.

Currently I'm a member of the Enspiral congregation, and today I'm having my first call with a brand new crew (as yet unnamed), with some people from Enspiral and some from outside.

My intention here in this group is to share lessons between contexts, and to connect the small scale personal growth to the large scale social change.