An Evolving Organization – 2024 Statement
As the gathering is growing and changing, we are working to create a dynamic system with more horizontal leadership. We recognize that in order to best serve our community as an organization, we need more dispersed leadership. This has the benefit of creating more shared responsibility and accountability, which also gives more folks the opportunity to step forward in service and support of our gathering and community.
We have come a long way from the point where Wren carried the weight of nearly every coordinator position within the gathering. Transitioning that responsibility to three main coordinators still felt like an enormous task. It is only as we have continued to divide the task load and make clearer and clearer agreements that we have begun to walk a path that feels more equitable and sustainable moving forward.
This shift into more horizontal leadership also entails implementing term limits on positions of power. We think this is an important way to continue to dismantle the us-against-them perspective that seems to seep into even the most progressive communities when a few people take on the burden of power. We aim to normalize transitions of power and leadership, and create a transparent process for that to happen. Our intent is to allow others the chance to take on leadership roles, thus nurturing the gathering and the community with their skills and style. We want to welcome our fellow community members, friends, and mentors into leadership roles, so as to not lose sight of the knowledge that there are myriad ways to do something well.
This is the spirit in which we are evolving aspects of the gathering structure this year—youth programming and the Neighborhood (formerly Safe Space Village) being two of those aspects. We’ve become a non-profit and are in the process of writing bylaws, recruiting board members, and designing the leadership structures within the gathering.
Youth Programming is moving from having on having one coordinator to a crew of competent, experienced leads (and worktraders) with the agency to plan their own programming and schedule guest instructors. The previous Youth Coordinator has been invited and encouraged to remain a part of youth programming as part of a crew of peers working together in this new structure that allows more folks to share in the joy of leadership and community care.
The Neighborhood is also shifting toward a more collaborative leadership structure in which each space is co-led by two people with support from the myriad people identifying with those spaces. The vision is to create a neighborhood feel in which these spaces can collaborate, but also create their own distinctive flavor within the community. To be more specific, the lead of the femme space is passing the torch on during this gathering. The masculine, BIPOC/PGM, and Queer affinity spaces are also all under new collaborative leadership. In shifting leadership in these spaces, we have discussed who might take on the responsibility and joy with the previous leads. Their recommendations were valued and thoughtfully considered. In some cases, we requested that the previous lead co-lead with someone new in order to preserve and honor the lineage of the space while also nurturing its evolution. We hope that transitioning out of leadership allows those who have held that space, and held it well, to enjoy and contribute to the gathering in new ways while also remaining involved in the spaces they have put so much heart and care into nurturing.
We acknowledge that we could have been clearer when advocating for these changes that we’ve been considering for the last few years and are now implementing. We could have tried harder to communicate the need for these shifts which would have opened the door for more collaboration in achieving these goals. The irony is not lost on us. We apologize for the ways that we weren’t and recognize that the implementation of these changes may feel like a surprise to some as a result.
To offer even more perspective on the shifts in leadership at the gathering— We have a new on-site registration coordinator this year. After next year April will be phasing out of the Worktrade Coordinator role. There is talk of returning that position to its former state of two WT coordinators who would collaborate on the task. Kito and Ross are phasing out of Site Coordination, and that role is becoming many roles. Jessie will be passing on the Instructor Coordinator role which will also likely become a collective role of a few folks dedicated to collaborating on creating the class schedule. These shifts are in the making and still clay in our hands. We welcome your suggestions, resources, and concerns. Of what are we not thinking? At what are we succeeding? In what ways do we not even realize we’re about to fall on our metaphorical face?
What we have gleaned as we’ve crept along in the welcome tracks of those ahead on the trail is to let others in. To let folks contribute. To share the joy and weight of leadership, of organizing, of dreaming—the grief of it, the stress of it, and the sparkling ecstasy of shaping the community in which we thrive.
There are so many skilled, loving, and willing people in this community that want to be involved that we think it is important to give that trust wherever possible. What makes trust more tenable is clear communication, honest agreements, and a willingness to share in the responsibility as well as the power. This is why we are putting so much effort into creating descriptions of all the different positions at the gathering, the Youth Programming and Neighborhood descriptions being two of those. We welcome constructive feedback on those descriptions or any of the others as we share them with the community. We plan to eventually have them all on the website for folks to see in addition to an overall map of the leadership structure. The intent here is to create more transparency about what work is being done, by whom, what the support networks are, and how folks can get involved.
We hope that evolving the gathering in this way will be well-received, even though there will likely be some failures and missteps along the way. We hope that those in opposition to these changes will stay involved and ride out what might feel like a rough patch with us and the community. Doing so will allow us to continue to collaborate and communicate constructively while getting better at being in it together, so we can continue the mission of teaching earthskills and nurturing social resilience.