Terrific event last night, graciously hosted by East West Bookshop, with nearly 60 in attendance, including representatives from several intentional communities, including the Port Townsend EcoVillage and Clearwater Commons. If you attended on behalf of a community and I missed naming it, add it below in comments–we were so glad to have you there!
This is a very brief overview of what happened–the event was videotaped and we will post excerpts as soon as they become available.
Panelists, including Neal Schindler (Ravenna Kibbutz), Nancy Lanphear (Songaia Cohousing Community), Syd Fredrickson (speaking about her experience at Twin Oaks), Larry Ryder (Ananda Community), and Helen Bennett (Sherwood Co-op), shared their reflections on the material, emotional and spiritual benefits of living in intentional communities, and added their own personal thoughts on how they decided to join one.
The Q&A session following the formal presentations included key questions like economic support, the impact of the recession, how communities deal with difficult residents, whether pets are allowed, decision making processes, and opportunities for people to explore living in an intentional community before actually making the leap.
Susan Gleason of YES Magazine was present and “live-tweeted” the discussion. You can get a flavor of the discussion on her Twitter profile (scan to her entries for March 10).
Thanks to all who made this event possible, particularly new NICA Board member Larry Ryder for helping set up the event at East West Bookstore, bookstore staff, our panelists (including another new NICA Board member, Neal Schindler), and Syd Fredrickson for skillfully moderating the discussion.
Thank you for mentioning Clearwater Commons, my community, in this blog post. I especially want to thank NICA and East West Bookstore for presenting last week’s panel discussion. I enjoyed the different panelists’ experiences and descriptions of their communities, and the diversity of community systems and philosophies. It was also wonderful and hopeful to see so many people attending the event.
Our group met today and talked about how it would be great to be involved in setting up a similar panel discussion in south Snohomish County, where our project is located. Obviously Songaia is in our area, and also Sharingwood. We would love to be involved in educating people in our area about intentional community, partly because we are seeking more members, but also because there may be less awareness of these kinds of communities and what’s possible in our county. We have certainly found there is less awareness of sustainability issues in Snohomish County than there is in King County, for example. I felt that the panel discussion format last week gave a good overview and glimpse into the many different styles of community and also pointed out the underlying importance of community on so many levels.
Would there be any interest in working with us to set up a panel in our area? If so, I would love to talk to the appropriate person who could help or give me some information. I really enjoyed Syd Fredrickson’s moderating and would like to know if she would have any interest in moderating another panel.
Nice to see the panel highlights posted. Thanks to Ken Gillren for taking pics/videos and getting these on the web. I’ve already agreed to moderate other panels, via email exchanged, but wanted to post here that others can watch this blog for announcements on when and where those will be, as they’re still TBD. It’s a busy patch for the next couple of weeks, but I’d like to see more of these happen in Snohomish County, Lake Forest Park, and perhaps other sites in the Greater Seattle Area.