This morning I had an “Ah Ha! moment.”
Yesterday I spent the entire day doing lots of things. Fun things! I didn’t make a single dollar.
I sat in on meetings where people spent 2 minutes each discussing the community projects they were working on. Others stood up and said “I am working on this project, what would you like to see it do?”
I gave a report on the progress and the publicity generated on my cube project as a result of a community project started by someone else in the room who had said to me “I’m making a website where we need articles telling of things you are doing just like what you are doing! Will you write an article?”
After the meeting I gave a demonstration with a working model of a project I have been working on for a few months. Just for fun! I watched peoples eyes light up as flames shot six feet into the air in a spiral. Very cool!
Over the course of the day people walked into my store, not to purchase things but to get answers on frogs, pumps, and how to stop splashing in a restored fountain project inside the 7th Street Theatre.
Later, I worked on a set of political bylaws that could shape how the party operates for the next two years. I then just happened to get a copy of a different county’s bylaws to contrast with the one I was re-writing. Needless to say I liked mine better but may lift a few paragraphs from the other set. It actually motivated me seeing the other set to say “this is what I don’t want to see happen here!” ”We are going to do better!”
I worked on my computer that for some reason is bent on keeping a nasty virus in it that blocks me from posting on the web. (I know you are saying dang, Mark somehow still made it out and is filling up my e-mail box again).
So what was the “AH HA! moment”….
This morning I visited a place I wish I could give to everybody. It started as a small street event project in a town similar to where I live.
The event grew and took up larger and larger spaces. Companies sponsored areas by donating materials. They also sent employees over to teach about company products, or were experts in or on subjects employees liked talking about. This was very similar to any trade show.
Food was very important here and at every location, where people gathered, there were folks preparing food. You could eat what you liked when you liked for free (part of the gate fee). At each location, where food was being served, there were chefs or food safety instructors.
There were classing going on all over the place. If you manned a food service booth with a food safety instructor and spent the required on the job class time at one station, you received your food handlers license. With that you could set up your own food station at a later date and teach cooking classes of your own.
In one of the “cafe’s” an instructor from the college taught folks how to sing in a choir. People would walk into that cafe, the choir instructor would greet you and find you an open chair at a table to sit. She would then ask you to sing a note for her and would work with you for a few moments to get you on pitch with the proper nasal resonance for your specific voice type. This would take less than 20 seconds. Then the rest of the group would join in adding their voices to yours. The lesson would continue and you were in the choir! WOW!
At the edges of the event grounds were folks who were talking about the dreams they had for the area next to the event. Did it need weeding or painting? The property owners would then be approached by the group as a whole and asked if they would like their property cleaned up and be part of the new learning center. If the property owners agreed they were interviewed as to what they would like to have done. What colors? What structures? What plants or trees?
The event space would then expand and instructors would give lessons on: how to plant trees, how to build arbors, how to paint. How to do plumbing. Basic “how to” on site real world classes!
People from out of town would stop in and spend hours helping out and soon they were giving classes on whales, birds and other topics. One person designed a set of ornate vertical blinds for one of the cafe’s, when you brushed your hand over them they played like wind chimes!
I asked one of the instructors, “how did this all happen?” She replied, “six months ago, the internet died here! A virus attacked all the computers in town. We no longer could surf the net for information. We could no longer send long informational e-mails. To keep all the grand ideas we had learned alive, we formed this community learning center. Our goal in a few years, and much that you see now, will replicate what once was only ideas. We are truly turning those ideas into reality by community networking, using nothing but the abilities of those in the town to communicate to others using practical application!”
I had spent all day in this place. I want to go back! I wanted to see it for real in my town. What a cool place to live!
The morning light began to drift into my bedroom. I tried disparately to cover my head with my pillow. ”Just one more hour” : I pleaded , “JUST ONE MORE HOUR!”… but the morning light pulled me feet first away from the little town I was visiting.
The “Ah Ha moment” was that mythical town in my dreams – just possibly my little town of Hoquiam in the future! I had lived the beginning of the Community Learning Center all day yesterday and visited what it could become in my dreams last night.
