Full Circle Associates

Damn, where have I been that I did not know about ccm . blog? Not a lot of volume, but some tasty bits that ring some chimes with my community_indicators project. Here are a few snippets:

From July 27

Zine Community

The zine community is one of the great pervasiveness communities in Portland. A freely expressive subset of indy journalists and pre-Live Journal teens.

The Zine symposium is next week and the organizers (TRUE facilitators) are taking a leaderless community and providing a forum for people to find places to stay, a forum for discuss and most interestingly providing an experience completely unique to their own community. They realize that when you encourage people to finally speak out freely on their beliefs and opinions, there may be conflict. They are addressing it head on with peace keepers and volunteers from all groups to help resolve conflict. They want everyone to feel safe and secure in their free expression and are finding new ways to allow that to happen. They are also calling for discussion, debate and learning in a blatant and important way. Viva La Zine Symposium!

I love it when people talk about conflict, rather than avoid it or worse, pretend it doesn't exist. Of course, I am also a fan of that F word, Facilitator! :-)

June 22

Communities of Prisons and Pipebands

As an outsider, how can we even begin to understand the subtle rituals and rules within a community so foreign to us? I've had a lot of questions about prisons, rights of prisoners, experiments in alternatives and actual methods for helping inmates to thrive on the "outside" so when I sat next to a 17 year corrections officer veteran of Rijkers Island (on his way westward to play in his 28 piece pipe band), I was thankful. My first line of quetsionning just made me look naive but what followed were some inisghts into this strange community.

Subtle rituals and rules... yup!

From April 28

Community as barrier

Where is the line between important trust bonds within a community and isolation from the external world that breeds distrust of "the other"?

A recognition of the dark side of community. As much of a Pollyanna as I am, I deeply appreciate holding both the dark and light in mind. Thanks, CCB!

community_indicators