The invisible core
A reflective analytical post from new member Andy Roberts
(I've been meaning to pen this contribution for a couple of weeks or so. There is a danger that it may precipitate a certain amount of defensiveness, but on balance I think disclosure is the best policy)
As a new member I'd like to offer a view from this periphery which is really quite perplexing. All I can do is describe how it appears to me and offer some very ill informed guesses as to the possible explanation.
It feels as if I have been invited to a house party, the front door has been opened to usher me in, but then I am left standing in large hallway. I'm not at all sure whether perhaps I am in the right place but at the wrong time, or if there are other rooms to which I can find no doorway. I'll just wait for a while to see if the group show up. One or two pass through, but there's no sign of the main party. I can feintly hear music, and the clearing of tables so the sense that it may be the right time but not quite the right place is increasing.
What I am saying is that the core of this community seems to be operating in a way which is so invisible to me, that I question its existence.
Logic tells me that a core probably does exist, and that it is quite likely that it doesn't even realise it is invisible. But I could be wrong, there are so few clues.
My speculative explanations are as follows:
1) The membership has emptied out or become inactive to the extent that the middle has actually fallen out of the community. It's a large but mostly empty house.
As I say, that seems unfortunate and perhaps improbable, but it is an entertainable possibility.
2) The core membership have an over propensity to back channel to such an extent that they don't notice or don't care that by now nearly all of their conversations are taking place in private. In effect they have set up an unofficial, or it may even be official, core group such that the legitimate peripheral participants have nothing to be peripheral to! It would be highly ironic for a cop on cops to make such a fundamental mistake.
3) The running and planning of the Foundations Workshops has sucked in all of the activity, and it doesn't take place in here where it is visible to the ordinary membership. So unless you are a teacher or a student over there, then you might as well not be here.
As I say, these are nothing but speculations and the view from other standpoints is likely to be highly different. It may be useful try and see if there is any correpondence between the view from the inside and the outside.