[matilda] Getting people involved...

[dan at aktivix.org]

Allo once more

Sorry about this... more stuff to read.  One of the agenda items for next week
was 'how to get a space for working in'.

Three new people came to the meeting last night, and had to go through the
rigmarole of approving the groundrules again, listening to much toing and
froing on what the agenda was etc – when all they wanted to do was:

1.Find out how to get involved in doing some art – which in practice means
getting involved with a particular collective.
2.Tell the group about a proposed new use for the space.

A couple of things from this.

First, I propose that new people should be given time *right at the start of
meetings* to ask their questions, be given answers, and to propose new uses. 
They should also be allowed to bugger off immediately afterwards – and be told
that's the case.

Reason: these Monday meetings, while frequent at the moment, are the main
meeting. They may (I hope!) reduce to one a month when the place gets going. 
The aim (I think?) is that the various collectives will take ownership of their
areas ASAP, so the main meeting will be less vital.  (And, at any rate, large
meetings follow the same iron rule of shiny new ventures – large numbers of
people at the start, and a slow attrition til you're left with a handful –
another reason why working collectives are the way forward!)

If autonomy for the collectives is the aim, this means that anyone wanting to
get involved in, say, the art collective (or an art collective) should be able
to go straight into that without sitting through meetings about the genealogy
of the PGA Hallmarks and the history of the Zapatistas.

I'd say that when people come along wanting to get stuck in, that should be made
as painless as possible.  This in no way detracts from the philosophy of the
building.  Why?

Well – an example.  I noticed last night one new person was asking questions
about a photography studio.  He was keen to know whether we had all the
equipment.  The reply came – no, not yet.  That needs to be sorted, and that's
what the collective's doing.

His only choice was to get involved to help make this happen.  The option of
merely consuming the centre's resources wasn't there.  Of course, each
collective will have its own dynamic, but the DIY-co-op principle is built-in.

So when people say 'I want to put on an event' or 'I want to do some art', it
should be crystal clear to them that

1.This isn't a tenant-landlord situation – you're gonna have to get mucky wit'
da collectives.
2.But that its really clear who they need to contact to get stuff done.  It
really wasn't clear last night...

For this to happen, I think each collective must have some minimum requirements.
 Two I can think of now are:

1.A named key-holder for each collective, so that other members know who to talk
to about getting in and out.  So we'd need more keys cut.
2.A named-or-e-mail'd contact for newcomers to the collective who can tell them
how it works, and how to get started.

(We could also do with an in-out board for all key-holders.)

OK!  That's probably my last rant for the day...

love n peas,

Dan