Events and markets
We've hired a bouncy castle (bf insists it's crucial for any event, I suspect he just wants to get a good bounce himself), went to the alternative fair and second hand market two towns away and distributed flyers (and got more good food, some chili plants and some good bits of talk in the process). We met the local organizer of that fair who recently came to local fame by chasing the police off the market grounds and tearing up their notes when they got too annoying taking people's identities. An approach to keep in mind.
Ideas
I have set up a meeting with a small group of people who might create a special corner at the event where ideas, wishes, inspiration for a cooperative and community center can be gathered. Incidentally: as in my mind a gradual shift from community center to cooperative happened, someone dear and close has objected to anything too business-focused, and they have a point. Where on one hand the beast having some outside legal structure would make a lot of things more easy - on the other hand the inside form of support and solidarity must be remembered, and remain the inner core of this. Edit: the small group is growing larger. Looks like we are having a full on meeting about the community itself.
Meeting
The small-ish group of people (or local witches' coven as bf preferred to call it) gathered (more tasty food) and a lot of positive energy towards the event was generated, messages sent out, support organized, it was also the first time I had occasion to present a somewhat coherent version of the whole project idea (not just the event) to a few people who all seem to be the competent, not easily offended, practically-minded types who could actually pull off something good. Whatever that might be. Someone asked me how I would feel if all that came out of the event were more regular events in the future, and no coop. I said I would consider it great, that I'd be happy with anything more than what we've got now.
Someone else reminded me of something important I must not forget: if I want people to join a cooperative I need to explain what a cooperative is. And that will force me to actually understand all the intricate details of how coop accounting and employment and decision taking works. The last person to arrive today turned out to know accounting for normal (non-cooperative) companies in the country and is really motivated to get involved, it will be super-helpful to have someone ELI5 me the terminology and concepts!
I had a lot of questions about the money today. I'm actually dumping some of my savings into this (as a somewhat unusual investment in the future). Not horrible amounts, but I don't really have an income right now and just set a sum aside and decided to make this event happen. I suspect some people might think I'm secretly rich, hope to be able to clear that up. I also hope that some paid work (or better, work within a coop setup) comes my way after the event, to stock up the savings again which are for buying our own small homestead. If we blow too much on parties it will be a really tiny homestead lol.
Backend
I've decided to create an instance of Agora to connect people interested in cooperative activities. It's the result of quite a few different self-hosting experiments around different collaboration online services and fediverse platforms. For the people I am trying to serve the Fediverse would be too much at this point I think, so a collaboration platform with a simple news board, file sharing, forum, chat (which I might remove as it will get mixed up with the forum) and neat email functions so send group emails.
After many painful attempts at conversations with people who go visibly dead inside when a technical term like 'server' is mentioned, I realized it needs to be very very simple. The somewhat retro look of Agora might actually help the users find their way around. Then again, someone just added me to yet another Whatsapp group around discussing sth sth cooperative, only that by the nature of Whatsapp I can't see what has been discussed already, so we might as well start at point zero, and that's where I go dead inside o_O
I hate big corpo social media with a passion, so I'm happy to start assembling a few people on this tiny Agora...
I only needed 9 users (incidentally the amount necessary to create a cooperative) to have the first disagreement. Anyway the platform will be more useful when an actual cooperative or other groups are formed that want to coordinate things. For networking to get new people to join it's not really useful, but I like to know that it works before it's needed.
People being people
In the background, some drama around a food buying group organized by another budding coop further away took place, and there always seems to be someone who ends up offended. Well. I've also been added to a messenger group of yet another currently offended party of the surroundings, and of course will try to make them un-offended and involved in the event. I'm curious if I meet anyone on this interesting adventure who manages to push my buttons, it's been a while since I've been offended. Being neurofunky seems to help, mostly I don't even notice when people are trying to be mean (and I might realize it weeks later but by then it's just funny).
Good vibes
All in all, a lot of good vibes are being generated. Yesterday I walked into the local builders shop, our potential neighbours, to drop some flyers, and they were positively enchanted, and will hopefully help out with some material. This evening, people were beaming, and thanking (?) me (??) schmorp, a simple bog creature (???), for creating this initiative!
If you are a lonely bog creature out there reading this: maybe you find it in you to try and build something for your community. Maybe they really enjoy it! What would you like to see thriving? Dream it up, and make it one step at a time! (DISCLAIMER: For some things, one step at a time can mean years. If you are a very young bog creature you might have to start small, or first learn a lot of things. But if you just proceed honestly and stubbornly, seeds will fall and grow!