CommieCamp2012
Introduction/Definition/etc
Commie Camp is an amalgamation (sp?)/
concatenation of Commie Clothing and
a Intentional Community conference
http://CommunitiesConference.org
held at TwinOaks in Louisa, VA
over Labor Day weekend 2012.
Body
Registering
I tried for an online scholarship
but never got a response...
Maybe I paused finishing the application
thinking I needed to clean it up some,
or the web ate it, or something,
but they said they didn't have it...
After a few emails that didn't really answer the question,
getting really nervous, almost a week before,
then down to a day or so before the Con,
I saw on the website Communities-Conference.org or similar
http://CommunitiesConference.org blog
(I muck up names, so keep searching or maybe I'll get
around to fixing the link on edits)
that said they had 100 or so people and expecting a few more
dropping in, which sounded like me, they had their hands
full with all the other logistics of getting the con going,
no need to make things more complicated like I need
a personal invitation or something like a college
acceptance letter to go for a long weekend alternative
hippie type conference.
I went anyways, with much more uncertainty and trepidation
than would have been necessary, IMO...
But I'm not trying to put on a Con, so I should just
shut up, chillax man, or some similar more kewl
sounding phrase....
Why Are You Here?
I got sick of the question, as after a while,
it was more like random people you don't
know come up and ask probing very personal
questions of strangers, or we don't want you here,
you are not one of us...
My safety clothes for motorcycle are
military spec/ style as that's about all they
have around DC for that, easily available,
so that probably didn't help,
and not currently livng in a community,
and other personal characteristics,
such as Autism like traits of aloofness
and being off on my own,
but while, after finally taking a shower,
I stank by the time I got there in the heat,
packing and 95 degree heat wave,
all I wanted was a shower, but you can't
shower as they need water pressure
(neighboring town Mineral, VA had the
EarthQuake a year or so ago
and mucked up the well water flow
volume so it's either /or outdoor kitchen
water, or shower)
I returned to people who were kind,
caring and talked with me, and gave them
an awkward hug, some of which for various reasons
didn't know what to do with it,
and one declined, which made me feel unloved,
so disconnected/ discontinued even saying hi
to her... And I didn't discriminate with the guys,
offering one buddy type motorcyclist a hug
and did the manly chest thumping
type version <_Insert Tim Allen grunt here_>
Motivation
For those that have been reading this site for a while,
first, my condolences <grin>, it's a mess, but it has some
rough ideas, lots of ranting but history and timeline
to what makes sense, for me, Notably
JerrySpaceIdea was a proposal
to start a residential program,
and more recently
HippieClownCamp2011
and even Autreat2012 and the previous two years
of Autreat also on this site at Autreat2011
Autreat2010PoorPitifulMeAndTheTreatmentsIRantOn
and Autreat2010PoorPitifulMeAndTheTreatmentsIRantOn
and other AutismLinks somewhat condensed,
but Autreat is only a week long face to face,
while lives on email group and internet somewhat
too, I've left that after three mostly failed attempts...
CommunitiesConference.org was an intense three days,
Friday afternoon through Monday, Labor Day, ending in the
mid afternoon...
Workshifts
Not only are the scholarship people required to do
2 hour shifts, but all attendies are expected to do at
least one shift in helping make the conference operate,
WorkShifts are mostly food preparation and cleanup,
dishes, latrine supplies refills, lighting trail lanterns
standby fill in people, etc, but there was childcare/
kid entertaining schedule too, and a mini playground
with jump in the [ hard metal sided, ouch] tub of balls
a neat/ unique hammock jungle gym, and other
miscellaneous amusements,
OneLaptopPerChilds XOs
I bought two OLPC XO's from a local tech lending library,
and lent those out individually to kids,
after checking with parents/ caregivers,
forming policies, on the fly,
and dealing with a lot of interpersonal/ social awkwardness,
lent them out, electrically recharged batteries in them,
tried to make sure they were safe from rainstorms,
droppage, loss manglement, throwing, etc,
the general interpretation was kids thought
they were giveways/ Grabs & Lounge table, freebies,
(read MINE), but I could not, and they are generally
not commercially available, see
http://OLPCLearningClub.org for more information
on the lending libraries on http://Laptop.org
and http://SugarLabs.org for free downloads
of the operating system plus activities
of the same software (SoAS/"SugarOnAStic" /
stick= USB memory stick),
just not the cute and clever unique and rare
in the USA green kid hardware.
HippieTime
Announcements (huge metal gong like bell
heard for an acre or so) when well done, included humor,
especially when it was true,
HippieTime = Casual start times, 15 minutes late a lot fhe time,
I've elsewhere (CritMass) called it California Time, but to each their own...
Camping
Campsites were marked out along trails with large jugs,
industrial sized containers reused/ recycled
holding lanterns, little candles, on the inside and/or top,
probably surrounded by sand or water
or something to prevent fires,
some jugs spraypainted with logos,
two female icons, or similar stuff to remember
sites, and Latrines,
OutHouses
Portapoties, not the commercial kind of
JohnnyOnfTheSpot (tm) JiffyJohns (tm)
or chemical toilets, perhaps the generic term,
but holes dug into the ground, pits,
and a wooden, plywood enclosures and nice
wood toilet seat, which doesn't lift, BTW,
and sawdust bucket, one is to drop
sawdust down to cover up your shit,
literally, and one is instructed, through posted
signs inside, to pee in the woods,
as large quantities of urine generally causes
problems, but there was no way to walk
out into the woods, without going off
trail and just pissing on a tree, for guys it's
is easier, not sure how women manage,
but that's not my issue, at the moment.
Handwashing
Just as one generally gets a tour
and know where the facilities are first,
I'm generally somewhat mechanical
and it takes time to figure out how things
are done in different cultures, mostly the
mechanics, as I'm generally blind/ low vision to
the social aspects, claiming partial Autism/ Aspieism...
Next to the outhouses, doubles some with a curtain
rod but no curtain double doors most,
sharing with a stranger was beyond me,
but had one comic moment, after it was suggested
to a lady and me, I pointed out there was a handwashing
station, which I got a nasty that was inappropriate,
but he seemed blind to the effects of his suggestion...
Integrated Conference Workshop Sites
Alternating with the campsite sites for tents
were workshop tents/ canopies, some tarps
strung in the trees with ropes somehow,
(*I think they have hippie monkeys,
fairly literally who like tree climbing*)
some more commercial, with poles,
one of which collected a big tub of water,
funny after the resource sharing workshop,
of how to store energy and stuff during scarce
times, rain bins/ barrels come to mind,
some workshop sites with chairs,
some more permanent with benches
or a mix,generally less than the people gathered,
(they probably went over capacity, but as far as I know
didn't turn anyone away, at least actively, maybe passively
by non reply) and several times I had to go get my own
plastic lawn chair to sit down, as the ants, I later discovered
looking down in the middle to an
anthill being rebuilt after the rainstorm,
were looking hungrily at my pants,
and I'm not looking forward to that,
other workshop, I just walked out of,
the anger and hostility from the presenter,
while the material was interesting enough
Joining Or Starting a Community
the presenters style was openly hostile,
until I had to say, "Can you co-lead this group?"
"With Me? Or Anyone?"
Everyhing people were saying was not what
he wanted to hear and it was feeling like abuse
something I don't tolerate, so eventually I walked off...
I'm sure he's knowledgeable, as a consultant,
and maybe having a bad day, or low sales in the
booksale site, but WHATEVER...
Tours
TwinOaks
I got out of the Con for a little while on a two hour tour
of Twin Oaks, which is a separate part of the
organization, they host events at TwinOaks,
but it's a large 500 acre mostly wooded lot,
and there are the other part of the place,
organizationally, they do tofu,
hammock creation/ woodshop, distribution
and sales, basically businesses in addition to the
farming and seeds enterprises.
Joining
This was something I knew little to nothing about,
as one has a process one needs to go through
to join a community, in this case TwinOaks,
is a three week long trial residence, and
then go away for a while, to decide, and come back,
but they have a waiting list of about 15
people so no openings at the moment.
IncomeSharing
A totally foreign concept to me,
what's yours is mine, what's mine is mine,
like a greedy wife or husband or something,
but people live on shared resources,
they take old people's social security,
for example, as income, and the community owns
everything, land, buildings, the cars/trucks/ tractors,
only 17 on the site, for 100 or so people
(some are kids) mostly in 100 square foot dorm room size
rooms, and community kitchens,
farm space, bicycles all over the place,
mostly in disrepair, AFAICT, etc
Hospice
According to the tour and some other
folklore, website browsing,
Kat was a long time member,
author and most likely a founder,
who over the decades of Twin Oaks
existence, TwinOaks is one of the
older communities,
along with East Wind in Missouri
and Sand Hill and some others
most of which I would have to look up
in the http://IC.org directory, for sale on siite,
in the back of the registration table,
not a library, but a book sale....
If I had had the money to do so,
as tracking it down and adding shipping
will be a hassle...
Kat left the community (most people seem to get
sick of dishes left around) and in returning
changed the community, in a direction that
seems to help, IMO, there are older
people, aging hippies and others who want
to live out their last years in the community,
instead of nursing care, etc...
Some of the work shifts are caring for elderly
just as they do for child care...
LEF
I was thinking LES for a while,
it's a low footprint/ environmentally sound farm,
called Living Energy Farm,
only a few miles from Twin Oaks in Louisa, VA.
It's in development and Alexis and a woman
gave people from the Conf a walking tour.
They bought a lot that was clear cut
by lumbering industry, and started planting
seed crops for Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
and are building ultra high efficiency solar
and other low impact housing.
I took video but need to upload
edit and clear it, of the tour,
one segment was really interesting
was the battery and solar parts,
I'm a geek and really know nothing
about most housing tech having been
in apartments, mostly subsidized,
these people are rural farming organically
and living somewhat off the grid,
while others buy solar and add it to
an existing house, this is Do It Yourself
(DIY) make a house, build it with others,
and live in a Utopian type alternative
lifestyle, of various degrees of technology
friendliness to some don't like cell phones
or computers, at all, (con policy was take it
out of the area to make or receive a call,
better yet turn it off entirely, I was surprised to
have signal most of the time, even it if was
only one bar and extremely slow)
some have computers, mostly don't like
them much at all, but discovered Twin Oaks
had a T-1 line coming in, and WiFi,
but the business and other stuff eats the
bandwidth that you are asked to to do
streaming video...
Anyways, after a generally low tech
experience in the woods at Con,
one geeky presenter, from talking
about sharing resources to
how to build a house, was a leap,
I know nothing, not even the names of
platsics used to kill off a part of the undergrowth,
now top growth, lay plastic, or recycled truck
tires cut out and patched up tubes/ valves off,
and over time it clears/ kills off the plants below
instead of turning the soil with a rototiller
or something gas hungry suburbanites would do,
including my late father in his modest victory garden
I keep on going off topic on the LEF, but it was very
interesting, and technical and maybe I can write it up
separate and include some still and video clips
eventually on my further post processing of the event...
Schedule
I generally could not live by the CommunitiesConference
schedule (which is usual for me, over time some years
I eventually figure out something that works for me,
and adapt and/or ask for accommodations)
and the talks were mostly randing academic to political,
to fairly commercial (Socioarchy)
FoodNotBombs guy CJ, non commercial, but a luminary
keynote draw, some authors, Alexis a DIY Green probably self
taught geek genius, Mockuppy/ Occupy Simulation,
and other community, spirituality, and even a Native American
sweat lodge, and other stuff like Open Space, member led
activies, an UnConference, for those familiar with
tech Cons, my first actual UnConference,
OpenSpace = UnConference
OpenSpace was fun to see it run,
initially people got up with a short 90 second
commercial/ elevator speech of what they
wanted to talk about, Farm Animals Petting & Tour,
and Writing Workshop, some of my favorites,
both of which were not popular enough
when everyone got two dots and voted,
the most popular ones were then shifted around in
meeting space on a wall board in the Pavilion
taking two at once, I sat in the hammock swing chair...
Hammock it Up
They really could have more than one hammock hanging
from the rafters in the pavilion, and even multilevel
for those of us who aren't as afraid of heights and
double height them, (with ladders) as resource sharing
was tough, I largely didn't attend anything I had to be
in a fixed chair for, and they Make hammocks,
damn it, just use more, some used / clearance /
broken ones were for sale at the registration table,
I had one picked out for $50 and a stand
for an other $50, but need to redesign,
it for motorcycle camping use
and other accessibility modifications...
Or rent them and make them portable?
Box hammock premium seats in the
Pavilion, now called Bird Cage!
Evening Activities
I missed a lot of the evening activities,
as had been up since 4 am, and collapsing early,
one of which was the Saturday night Auction at the
TwinOaks dining hall, and Dance...
I caught the beginning of the Sunday evening
Acorn dinner and Bonfire and got back
by a generous couples ride between the two,
about 10 miles, in the dark with unknown directions,
but we made it...
Last Day
In parallel to the people at the Sophia
House paid training on Sociocracy (tm),
one old time member of Twin Oaks (Pax?)
led a series of impromptu workshops,
since they didn't do the Mockupy / Occupy simulation,
AFAICT and I missed part of the announcement
of that history and rationale...
IfYouReallyKnewMe
An exercise workshop, which got a little
out of hand, well actually that one was good,
but the next ones, as people were both critical,
overly in my opinion,
In a controlled and caring environment,
(huge disclaimer here, as I'm generally socially
an irritant or more politically correct, instigator)
If You Really Knew Me was something
of a truth or dare, but a little different,
If You Knew Me
"I would rather laugh than cry"
I had intended to say die, but didn't
have the nerve in the group which I was
mostly an outcast from...
They went around the room, each person saying something,
or passing, maybe following something like "I want pussy"
which is really difficult to follow,
some allowed responses were "Ouch"
Gender, Religion and other disclosures
were common themes, mostly at the end
of the conference I was sad that I'd barely
met most of the people in the workshop,
feeling further outcast, some I'd talked to
individually kind of knowingly WTF
during some of the groups hyper criticality
of me, as it developed further en masse...
Witholds
Where you in a controlled and presumably
emotionally safe environment,
say something to someone
with explicit permission, along these lines,
SoAndSo, are you willing to take a withold?
If Yes? Then proceed
If No, then it gets dropped.
There is a 24 hour delay before responding,
so that one does not escalate to global thermonuclear
war, relationship wise, and emotionally,
some time to think about what was said,
and process it, but for the conference,
which I pointed out, we were gone
in 24 hours so didn't have further contact,
and gave one of emaisl on one of 4
clarification questions from someone else
in group (other than the person told the withheld)
I also got into how that could potentially become
a bully stick, and probably literally kill someone
with harm and exclusion, like a Amish Shunning,
which the group probably went to processing
into he's suicidal/ a danger, what
do we do with that outcast, Asshole/ _someothercurseword_
or something similar, I went to clean up and do some
personal and group chores including, but not limited to:
putting away my tent, that had sogged over the
downpours of the last days,
trying to dry stuff on the picnic tables,
as there were not other real places to dry,
in the forest, with only a few clearings,
making me later think of the need for a
SolarOvenClothesDryer
Also doing dishes left behind on the picnic benches,
and all over the place, it was generally not people
cleaning up after themselves but people thought
everyone else was their person servant or
or a catered full service conference, but
a continual annoyance really, maybe kids
and run off leaving their dishes, or adults too,
coffee cups all over, and the chores I did
included, helping start boiling huge pots of water
at 4 or 5 am to 6 am, for coffee or tea
seeking Partial Credit (tm) was my joke,
taking a huge heave compost bucket,
carrying it for an older but kind woman and
with someone else, and a lot of what about this
that (where does overflowing trash from the
woodshop bathroom go?) and the other type
quetsions at the registration desk,
Some enteraining of kids and adults
(one guy doing chores at the dish washing
site, just did other people's dishes to which
I interjected hopefully humorously to a
questioning young lady that she was helping
just by entertaining us being there,
the other guy (tall, young, handsome,
unshirted) asked for a massage/back rub,
which she thought was too much/ out of bounds,
,or perhaps heard as sexual and called foul,
when really it was probably
just rub my back while I do your
dishes or something more hippie
and innocent...
PhoneCall
Calling someone for support,
patterned after Call Mom,
but I went to Calling back Twin Oaks
"Yeah, it's been a while,
I need money to start a community for
and by disabled"
"well, that's a lot to ask",
"Need rich people, but disabled generally aren't rich"
but maybe like Korean communities
which help start ofher businesses
in a community fund, one intentional community
or several can decide to help another
start up, and I called it "TwinOaks2,
name taken", (parallel joke on Walden2 here),
ClosingCircle
With the 30 or so people left, many had
gone to the conference training, a separate
paid thing at Sophia House, which I'd been
to for a VOCAL training a number of years ago,
Herding Turtles report when Patrick was still
alive, and one of the last places I'd seen him,
with photo of him somewhere in there...
Anyways, my closing statement/ forced summary
was built off the comments of the youngest in the circle,
aged 5, "fun for overgrown children too" or very similar,
It's a little hazy in the middle of the night trying to get
down all the experiences of a day, thinking back
to what it was like doing a month long thing at
Geshundheit back in October of last year,
coming up on the year anniversary, next month,
wondering what I've done to make it happen,
after getting caught up in day to day life
and just plain survivial, actually, in the last few
weeks, and I really needed to get away
from it for a while, and regain some sanity,
lost in SomeOfHowThePoorIsKilledByTheSystems2012
housing recert process and then apartment manglement
meetings, which I have to face more of later today...
.
Conclusion
Summary of experience or similar
I learned a fair amount,
was generally not accepted as well as I would hope,
but my welcome/ lack of registration and awkwardness
contributes to that, motorcycle instaed of van sharing
rides are the usual method though I wanted to bicycle tour
to the Con and it's on a Bike Tour Route, I just had too
many pressing other housing issues to take the time to do that...
I connected with a few people. would have liked to sleep with
several of he cute women, (individually or in a group <grin>)
but largely was not felt loved but for a few caring people,
a greeter, which turns out to have been Pax, when I drove
into the wrong Twin Oaks entrance, and got directions I couldn't
follow, driving instead encountering an ostrich/ emu type bird
think big bird buy balding/brown and scary instead of kid funny
so maybe I did have a "relationship": prior to the closing workshops...
Oops.
The Hammock business I'd like to redesign their line of products
to something more useful to me, Motorcycle portable with
a double stick snap together and low weight frame,
RentAHammock during Con, and other ideas,
maybe I'll use the suggestion to try a book
from 1974 that Twin Oaks is in and design my own,
as a business for another startup community,
named TripleOaks?
Requirements of a work camp type of thing
of the 42 hours per week shifts could not work
in existing disability subsidized housing type
framework. As disabled I can't work, literally and legally.
Maybe it can be reframed as therapy, support groups
and life skills training and keep the income.
Housing Subsidy is an issue, federal program
works on square feet and market rate so small (100 sq ft?)
dorm room shared living room dining room/ workshop space
is going to be less financially sound than the
current system...
Innsfree, a disabled provider faith based?
service community for Intellectual Disabilities
is the closest I've seen/ heard of met people,
but it's not peer based, so significant redesign
model required there
LEF is Kewl, and while in the infancy of startup,
sounds promising.
Acorn is kewl in a large established agribusiness
way. Mostly younger people thought, and has a
black lab, pupply which makes the excluding dogs
problem fixable as a new startup idea...
Mostly getting the range and experiencing the conference
camping site was educational, even if I missed most
of the normal scheduled program as tends to happen
with my disability and sleep schedule.
Playing with kids on the OLPC XO computer was fun,
I need to learn how to do that better, lessening the
initial awkwardness, and not taking all my saying goodbye
and getting contact emails for followup time in a small
impromptu makeup time session at the end...
Hippie women are generally appealing to me,
but I'm a pig, and an old one at that,
and need to find a relationship and stop/
tone down my male pigginess/ as I've been in a
glacially cold zone for a long time...
Discussion
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20120904 Jerry
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