"Networking" means getting people together with common interests to share ideas, make contacts, and build relationships. Through networking, individual efforts can become a movement, and Dancing Rabbit can learn and grow and with other similar efforts can influence the world.
From the early on Dancing Rabbit was lucky to find such resources as the Communities Directory and Communities magazine. For the last year and a half DR members have been attending the organizational meetings for The Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC), a non-profit organization that publishes the Directory, Communities, and the intentional communities Web page (www.ic.org), and in many ways embodies the communities movement. The FIC is certainly a focal point for community networking, especially at its semi-annual organizational meetings.
In addition to running the FIC, these meetings serve as a gathering place for community networkers and seekers. At the last meeting in November '96 at the Farm in Tennessee, two days of time and a special forum were reserved to allow attendees to meet on topics of common interest. In this time I was able to make contacts with people incredibly knowledgeable in such things as alternative technology and permaculture. From these contacts we hope to have people come and help DR do an initial land use plan and site design, sometime in the early spring. Also, I met with others working to create sustainability guidelines similar to the ones DR is current creating and we have begun collaborating, hopefully to create guidelines applicable to a larger group of people than DR alone.
By far though the most exciting thing from the FIC meetings was a discussion group on Ecovillage Networking. Albert Bates, from the Farm and head of the Farm's Ecovillage training center, was there and he gave a report from the Global Ecovillage Network, of which the Farm is the North American home office. GEN hopes to create ecovillage networks on every continent and link them through itself to help promote and spread the ecovillage concept worldwide. We discussed the formation of ENA, Ecovillage Network of the Americas (soon it will split into North and South once there is enough strength to support separate organizations). Through such a network, ecovillages could share ideas and technology, trade economically, do labor exchange, have collective outreach materials, write grants and lobby collectively, have large celebrations and gatherings, and network with other groups such as the FIC, FEC, and the cohousing movement.
To create this network we plan to have a founding congress at the Farm next year in July. The goal is to bring key people in the ecovillage, ecology, and community movements together to approve bylaws and make plans for what this organization can do. To do the prep work we are creating an email list called ENAPrep (to subscribe, send email to Tony at sirna@cs.stanford.edu) Between now and next July we need to decide on an organizational structure and draft bylaws, incorporation papers, and a mission and vision statement, and begin to create programs for this group. This will require input from throughout the movement and volunteer energy to get things going. Any help is welcome; expressions of interest can also be sent to Tony.
Dancing Rabbit hopes to be a major participant in ENA and the ecovillage movement. We feel there is tremendous potential to have a positive impact on the world if ecovillage groups can cooperate and network effectively.
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