Moving Forward

Growing Community

There are plenty of groups in Iowa City where you can go meet at an expensive restaurant or bar and spend too much money to socialize.

There are quite a few groups that meet at places that aren't conducive to taking kids, which means people with kids have to find a sitter.

There are a whole lot of groups that only have one focus or push some sort of spiritual agenda.  I don't like to be a naysayer but atheists and Christians also want to garden organically and sometimes the labyrinth walking at events is a little over the top.

This wasn't meant to be one of those groups.   It was meant to be the practical down-to-earth alternative. It is meant for peasants and people who aspire to be peasants. ;-)

This group was formed with the idea that members would  host family-friendly potlucks, bonfires, and maybe even the occasional harvest party or quilting bee.  It was formed so that people who wanted could sit around the table and work on a craft project, while another group made them homemade irish creme.

It was formed with the idea that someone could post in the group, "Hey, come help me build my new garden beds and I will feed you!" Or that you could call someone in the group to come over and look at the bug that's eating your tomatoes.

It was formed so that people could go in together on bulk orders and save money. Although honestly, I think the UNFI buying club a few of us belonged to is defunct.  I will have to look in to that. There are still members with Frontier wholesale accounts and wholesale accounts with other supply companies.

It was formed with the idea that we would be freely sharing our knowledge with one another about all sorts of topics and maybe even working out ways to share equipment with people who want to try something new.

In short, it was formed to grow a community.  As one of the few remaining founding members, I am going to push hard to see that  we stick to those principles.  There will never be membership fees, nor will we charge people for classes.  We won't meet in places that are financially or situationally prohibitive for people.

Furthermore we won't push any sort of hippy dippy agenda.  We aren't doing this for the Earth Mother or to usher in a new society.  We are trying to recreate the good parts of an old-fashioned community where people pitched in and helped one another out. That's how families survive rough times and there is a sad lack of that in today's society.