Dinner:
I am bringing salad, my neighbor has been smoking a brisket all day. Others are bringing vegetables, and I have heard rumors of a pie. This will be an informal meeting, as we need to discuss the spring and summer infrastructure improvements. Ya, it takes us all a long time to make plans. We don't rush it.
Me, I will make a plea for tripling the solar, new batteries, and upgrading our local ISP hardware. But it's not broken. Also some septic tanks and lines need maintenance.
Good community meeting tonight, lots of good food and laughs. No nothing was decided. We don't run a democracy here. Nobody votes. But it's not exactly a consensus either. At the moment there are only 14 humans, so we just talk until what needs to be done becomes obvious. No one is trying to convince anyone else. We differ on lots of world issues. But the very local stuff, we just pay attention, and talk. It seems to work. We are constrained by money. So most ideas don't materialize.
@Obstreperous_Kitteh @corlin
And you will find that we will have trouble coming to unity on a $25 minor decision, but for a commitment of hundreds of dollars in support of disaster relief, not only do we come to unity quickly, everyone will have the same dollar amount in mind.
@Obstreperous_Kitteh @corlin
That’s the way unprogrammed Quaker meetings make decisions, since there is no minister, and since voting creates winners and losers that can fracture the community. Getting mundane things done can be slow, and we make liberal use of committees which can come to a decision and report to the full meeting for final approval. Our belief is that these meetings are a form of worship, of being open to spiritual guidance.