Unemployed or underemployed? It's Time For Community!

If you've got extra time on your hands, as well as dreams and visions for yourself and/or the larger community, then please join us for snacking, socializing, and brainstorming at our Time for Community potluck! We meet every Thursday at 2:00 pm, Colonel Summers park, at the covered area near SE 17th & Taylor. If you have food to bring and share, great, but if not, don't worry about it - just show up and join in! You can also join our email list at http://groups.google.com/group/timeforcommunity

Here is my blurb about the genesis of this group, from earlier this month:

-- I’ve been thinking in the past few days about all the friends and acquaintances I have who are unemployed, or underemployed, right now. They are among the coolest, smartest, most creative, most interesting people I know. Talking to them, I find myself feeling very grateful for my own stable employment, and wishing for more stability and financial wellbeing for these friends of mine.

At the same time, on a larger scale, I am also having a felt-sense of great possibility. Economically, politically, and culturally, it feels like our society is on the brink of some sort of turning point (or, more likely, many turning points). It feels scary and uncertain, but also brimming with possibility.

What I would love to do is to help bring together some of my friends (and their friends, and my other friends’ friends) to facilitate some as-yet-unknown thing that would be made possible by the current set of circumstances. Namely, a bunch of really cool, smart, creative people with a lot of time on their hands and—in at least some cases—some fear and uncertainty and isolation in the midst of it all.

I’m imagining sparking a sort of community – maybe it would start with a weekly potluck in a park? – where some of these folks could get to know each other and start talking about their visions for themselves and for the larger community. I’m visualizing different niches for people with artistic and creative passions and talents, those with political organizing skills, those with computer/technical skills, those with community organizing skills, those with hands-on building or other labor-type of skills… and I’m sure many other skill sets I’m not even thinking of.

I’m imagining a few people stepping forward to take leadership of whatever the group or project(s) might become (since I’m working full time, I would not have the time or energy to do this myself)… and the synergistic effects of everyone visioning and working together to do things to bring personal satisfaction to each, as well as to make a contribution to the larger culture.

I’m also imagining involvement from folks in a different set of life circumstances, ie, those who have access to substantial money or property, who might want to align with the group to provide some financial, material, or land resources to help manifest whatever projects might arise.

I’ve been inspired by groups and projects like City Repair and its Village Building Convergence, the Milepost 5 folks, the We’ve Got Time to Help folks, the Burning Man creativity and gift-economy ethics… and various other groups and efforts.

At the very least, I would like to see some of my friends meeting with each other, sharing moral support during a difficult time, and spending some time doing fun stuff together. (I remember several years ago when I was unemployed, I had a lot of time available, but I wasn't always able to enjoy it because I was worrying about money and the future, and most of my friends were at work during the day, so I didn't have friends to hang out with during a lot of the time.) At most, I would love to see something really cool come out of the gathering(s), moving our society in a direction that can best serve all of us during the various economic, political, and cultural transitions we are facing.

~Maren

-- "Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone." R. Allen