Join in - by richard w

Here’s an that idea I’ve been pondering and want to try out.

We’ve been talking quite a bit in some of the Dream groups about building community recently, and how to do that in a way that is natural and ‘organic’ but also deliberate and inclusive.

So instead of big organised (contrived?) ‘socials’ which loads of people can’t make and loads of others don’t enjoy because “I’m just not into barbeques/ salsa/ underwater-basket-weaving”, how about if we find a way where as we all get on with our lives we’re able to simply invite others who are part of the Dream community to “join in”.

For example, last weekend someone else in Dream told us about the Africa Oye festival. We told a few others that we were going and they could come too if they wanted. No-one felt pressured to come because they ‘should’, and we’d have been quite happy as a family going on our own. As it was a few did come and it was fantastic.

What if we all found a way to let everyone know when we were doing a picnic, concert, walk, barbeque, café, museum, sushi, morris-dancing, train-spotting, etc and wanted to invite anyone else to come too.

It would be crucial that whatever we were doing was something that we’d still enjoy if no-one else took up the invite, and also was very low on organisation. E.g. “the bbq will be on from 5-8, bring your own food and drink if you wanna join us” vs “RSVP with numbers and special dietary requirements a week in advance”!

-Could this work?
-Does it appeal?
-What would be the best and easiest way to ‘announce it’ (email, blog, other)?

I reckon it might have lots of mileage, but would love to hear the opinions of others, and whether we should give it a go.

BTW. I’m emailing this to the Dream Haydock lot and also posting it on both my blog and the Dream blog as part of the experiment as to where people will get info.