So, I’m sure you’ve figured this out already, but this little section of my blog is all about community. Specificially, it’s about online community (aka, how I spend my day) but like everything else in my life it tends to bleed over.
Most of my life I’ve had a feeling of looking for community. That’s not unusual, especially for a left-of-center kid growing up in a smallish town. You tend to feel like you don’t quite fit in, and you’re always looking for the place that you do fit.
The internet was actually one of the first places I found community. I am, as you might guess, a pretty obsessive nerd. I tend to dive feet first in to my obsessions, whether they last for a few weeks or a few years. Back when I was about 13, my obsession was The X-Files. Like any other X-Phile, I tuned into Fox on Sunday night for each episode and collected clues about the conspiracy, tried to unravel the case of the week, and longed for Mulder and Scully to finally resolve some of that UST. That’s about the time I discovered my first online community. (I also discovered fanfiction, but that’s really a subject for a post of an entirely different sort. Ahem.) Based mostly out of Yahoo Groups, I found worlds of other fans who were as obsessive as I, who didn’t think it was strange that I could rattle of names of directors and writers for my favorite episodes, or wanted to share theories about the alien conspiracy and the origins of Cancer Man.
It was pretty amazing, and I haven’t really looked back since. I’ve met a lot of amazing people from various groups, and though I’ve bounced around–from Yahoo Groups to Livejournal to blogging, Ravelry, Twitter, and of course Current–online communities have always been a big part of the way I found community.
Of course, that hasn’t stopped me from trying to find my community, my tribe in real life! I firmly believe that’s a big thing missing in modern society, to our detriment. But again, that’s another post. To the point, I’ve gotten involved with CAYA, and am blessed to play a role in creating an amazing pagan community. Of course, it’s not without challenges–for those of you who aren’t familiar, CAYA is an open, eclectic coven. Practically speaking, this means that we have a lot of people coming from a lot of different perspectives–and we all tend to be strong-willed about it! Balancing different views and personalities and coming to a conclusion that’s best for the group with a minimum of conflict is difficult work, but it’s also one of the most fulfilling things I’ve been a part of. When everything comes together, it’s amazing and it reminds me why I do what I do, both online and off.
Given all that, you can imagine how thrilled I was when Mario brought up the idea of Community Speakup. A chance for community managers to get together and share more about what we do? Sign me up! I’m a big believer in gathering in real life as well as online, and I think that this is a great way to start building a support system for community managers. One of the lessons I’m learning with CAYA is that clergy need to remember to maintain their own community and support, as well as that of the community at large–and the same holds true for community managers. Let’s not get so busy managing our unique communities that we forget we’re also a community of our own! So if you’re in the area, and you’re a community manager, why not check out Community SpeakUp on Upcoming and stop by!