@Hiro: I was truly touched by your wonderful words. Thank you very much for taking the time to share some of your comforting wisdom with me!
.-= Josiane´s last post … Noticing – the dragonfly edition =-.

I’ll be over in the corner, whimpering a bit and trying to sound as though I’m not.
.-= Lean Ni Chuilleanain (@leannich)´s last post … Lace Shawl in Progress =-.

[[Hug!]]

@Sonia - not at all. I think at the biggest we were at 92, *including* Group Leaders and the beta group.

I am reasonably sure we could go as high as 100 (plus 10 group leaders), as the absolute outside "this is the highest number imaginable". Definitely definitely not more than that.

And I'm not even sure about that as even when we had 65 when we first opened, it was crazy busy all the time. As people have gotten used to each other and to the group, they've all become friends and so it seems a lot cozier. But that's because they've had time to adjust.

Every single person gets overwhelmed when they first come in. There are hundreds and hundreds of posts about what to do about being overwhelmed at the Table. And then people figure it out.

They realize that they don't have to read everything and respond to everything (or even any of it) and that they don't have to do anything except Ask For What They Need.

(And yeah, we tell everyone that in the handbook but apparently most of us need to hear it at least a couple times).

Some people are in all the time, some people take off for a month or two and then come back, some people just hang out in the small groups. So it never feels like ... ohmygod ninety people.

The key for me though is people who are committed to the same types of things. You know, we're all in the same goofy-ass duck cult, and we're interested in destuckifying in relatively nonviolent ways and stuff.

Hope that makes sense. I have to say that I never really understood the word "community" until doing this. This is a group of people who would do anything to help each other. It's absolutely wild the way that worked, and I have no idea how I would go about teaching someone to try to recreate it, you know?

There's an energy factor and a chemistry factor and a whoah what just happened factor.

So I guess that's a long way of shrugging my shoulders and hoping that something in that is useful!

Is it horribly nosy to ask how big the group is? I’m interested in the dynamics of how many people you can realistically create a good sense of community gel with … lively but not insane. Or at least not insane in a bad way.
.-= Sonia Simone´s last post … What Makes Marketing Hard? =-.

@Carol - ha! Perfect place for you to show up and say, hey knitters make me some smooshy scarves! I am a bashful non-knitter too (part of my complicated refusal-to-be-domestic complex) but it's very important to be friends with the people who make the socks.

:)

@kat - mmmmm, thank you for putting it like that. That is so so beautiful. The "and each other" part is exactly it. It's so so huge. Yay. I'm glad!

I also agree with Elizabeth about the ripple effect. All along the Internet, for example, I keep seeing glimmers of Kitcheners biggifying themselves and each other, step by step, in grand gestures and in five minute love pats. That kind of thing is a model and an inspiration to us all. What you’re cooking in the Kitchen smells delicious, and we all get fed!
.-= spiralsongkat´s last post … Blogging in the dark =-.

…am also thinking I should have slipped in through the last-minute screen door to the kitchen before it closed last time.

Looks like I’m surrounded by lots of good company in the waiting room.

Hiro, I love: “You belong because you’re loved, and you’re loved because you are.” Is that too long for a tee shirt?
.-= Mahala Mazerov´s last post … Tender Edges of Your Heart =-.