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<div>i can see it developing a bit like this</div>
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<div>at the meeting a few of the people there with really good local links say that there's a number of individuals and organisations in their local area that might be interested in becoming a democratic community.</div>
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<div>we decide to try and help these become 'exemplar communities' and start doing direct communication in those areas to explore, explain and find out if even more people are interested, with the aim of getting enough people together to get it started</div>
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<div>because it's been initiated by local people, members of the group that are not from the area can still help out without looking like they're 'parachuting'. i'm happy to do this outside of the area i live in because i beleive that establishing the principle in areas that are already active and have a strong local community will strengthen the idea and make it more attractive to other places.</div>
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<div>the whole group will also be on the lookout for other ways in which we could progress the project (either by trying to find people in other areas for other new or something else)</div>
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<div>i think it would be good if we could get 3 or 4 diverse areas in different parts of town?<br></div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 8:59 AM, james holland <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:james@dogmanet.org">james@dogmanet.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">let's say that democratic communities are 100-150 people and that that they could possibly federate together through a 'spokes' system of 50-100.<br>
<br>what's the best way to start the process?<br><br>i think one good approach is to split up into areas of about 15,000 (borough wards are about this size) and find a group of people who are interested in starting out, then over time try to find people in each of the 100 or so communities and gradually build the capacity of what will eventually make these the sovereign communities. This approach gives a context for activists and residents that may live close by, but not live in the same street or block to make a start, they will be able to engage people from the whole community and then help to build core communities when numbers start to grow.<br>
<br>maybe we should aim to start by identifying and supporting a small group of ward size areas with a good concentration of interested people / campaigns / resources?<br><br>obviously this is all for discussion at the first meeting, but these are just a few thoughts<br>
<font color="#888888"><br><br>-- <br><br><br><br><br>James Holland<br><br><a href="http://risingclevel.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://risingclevel.blogspot.com/</a><br></font></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all">
<div></div><br>-- <br><br><br><br><br>James Holland <br>