The Word Is "organize."

 Sometimes it is about guts

                The word organize is closely related to the word organ. Important meanings for organ include tool, instrument, and implement. Organ can speak of guts as well as it can of a musical instrument. Could that imply that guts are available for the formation of a melodious and harmonious organization!

                The word organ has referred to an implement for doing work. An organization can be a tool for getting things done. To organize can be the process of making a tool to get things done and even to the process of maintaining an organization. So, to organize can be the can be the process of making and maintaining a tool to get things done.

                To organize can be thought of as a derivative of organ and once meant literally to furnish with organs including to do so to form a living being.  So, your organization can be alive and active. And so, your organizing activity could provide your group with a coordinated, coherent structure; might it even be done so as to include guts and music?

                To organize is to cause to develop an organic structure. You may look at your organization and see that it is alive and well! I feel enthusiasm for the doing right now.

                To organize can be to arrange or form into a coherent unit or functioning whole. In governance that unit or whole may consist of lively persons. We can organize to get things done.

                We seem to have a handle on the nature of "to organize," but there is much more about organizing which is worth knowing. 

                We know that organize means to establish organization or an organization. We may consider that there are organizations because there is organizing going on. These days there is a growing interest in the development and maintenance of political, social, and civic organization. This growing interest is developing in many persons new to it. They know that an organization consists of activities and doings by actors and doers. They are developing some ideas as to why it is done and a few ideas as to how it is done. 

              

                 Organization for cooperation may be one of mankind's earliest activities. It is mostly learned by ongoing observation and practice. It benefits greatly from ongoing dialogue. When a number of us are doing something together, Talk of what we are doing; why we are doing it, and how we agree to do it, is important to our success, The quality of that talk is certainly important. 

                    Actors and doers learn and keep abreast of group and individual called for by their dialogue, their observation, and their talk. They learn varied functions which contribute the whole and collective functions. Much is done together. In a democratic organization even more is done together. Persons unite and accept specific responsibilities for an understood purpose. Persons unite for a particular purpose and take on certain responsibilities.

                    An organization is often a more systematize co-operation rather than a less systematized activity, One can observe that organization can be a powerfully effective social tool. We may organize a mechanism for taking care of business and discover that such organization is vital to that business.

                An organizer is one who organizes. In a democratic organization the more complete the participation in organization, the more lasting and powerfully effective that organization often is. The organizers put the guts into the organization. An organizer acts to put life and action into her organization. An organizer activates the process of making your organization a tool for getting things done. When you do not participate in that process you make your organization less democratic and less effective. Your organizing acts to cause your organization to develop a better organic, living structure for doing well.

                An organizer sees his job establishing and maintaining his organization as he and his fellow members have decided.

                For an organization to endure organizing must go on. You may find it useful to use your own initiative from time to time. However, if the organization is to be truly for us it must be truly by us.

                Organization is much about co-operation, so, to organize is much about  helping the members of the group to practice co-operating. We can find or make opportunity to talk about this kind of cooperation. We can learn to improve the way we talk together.

                Thank you for reading, 

Do it right now

 Get together a small group      

                These few words are directed to citizens of the USA and anyone else who is curious.

                The purpose of the groups I speak of is teaching one another about the nature a value of what could be called participatory governance, trust and cooperation in a group, the actual working of government in the US, theoretic nature of republics and democracy, and that which the group decides to learn the workings of. I hope it will be about participation. It could about participatory democracy.

                It could be about freedom. What freedom? It could be the freedom to cooperate in taking care of one another in a fair and meaningful way.

                Some important rules for a strong group include:

No enemies.

Each member has frequent and equal opportunity to speak to the whole attentive group.

        A  good start can be sitting down and listening to one another; hear each other. An important purpose is to begin to trust each other a bit more. Appropriate trust is a great power. 

            Begin. Start right now.

            Thank you for reading.

                                                                                    Richard 

Our place of prosperity and abundance

We  know how to co-operate. Many of us can learn to co-operate in a reasonably short time, when the motivation is good for us. Could a little town of only 3 or 4 people learn to do that and live very well. What steps might they need to take to do that well? We can choose to do it for ourselves.

                                                                                                        rcs

Citizenship and Governance

  A Consideration of Definitions and Meanings

                     You may have noticed that I am attracted to phrases like active democracy and active citizenship.

                    We seem to be pretty much on the same page as to the meaning of  "active" which includes concepts like: "capable of functioning," "causing movement or change," "participating," and like that, right? And also we have in common the idea that the U.S. has been and pretty much is a republic. A republic being a situation being  in which representatives and leaders are directly chosen by citizens and have their position at the will of the citizenry. No situation being static. The originators of republics did not what theocracies, dictatorships, kingdoms or even oligarchies. 

                    Many considered a republic to be an important step toward democracy. Democracy being a situation in which a growing percent of citizens were practicing governance. More people were learning to participate in their own government as mature adults. Republicanism and democracy seem excellent ideas for solid, stable, just modes of governance. Both call for ongoing learning and practice.

            So, citizenship is about the doings of citizens which is the practice of their own governance. Citizens are persons learning to take care of themselves and take care of their own governance. I imagine that we agree that the base meaning of democracy is governance by the people. A republic is much like that, the people being responsible for their government, but being a bit less active. Both democracy and republicanism are active processes. In both the job of governing is done in a lively way and a bit more so in a democracy.

                Where the people of either a republic or democracy lack practice, their government may fail.

                More can be said about governance. Most of use know a great deal about self government and much of it can be taking care of by ourselves. However, when our neighbors are throwing garbage in our street leading to the sickness of our children we know that some cooperation is in order. We could perhaps burn down the houses of  our offending neighbors but we realize that could lead to more problems. So, we have learned a great deal about co-operation. That co-operation is how we govern ourselves. We get our food and water in that way. When we refuse to take some responsibility for our mutual food, water, and garbage, we are likely to get worse food and water, and worse treatment of garbage. So, we have learned to practice cooperative governance for our benefit and that of our neighbors. Sometimes some of use forget that co-operation is a ongoing process.

                Even in our own families co-operation is not a one time affair, but an ongoing cooperation. We come to maintain accords with our families and neighbors, we often come to develop certain norms  and come to know that they must be practiced to be maintained. Cooperative practice usually takes communication. So, communication, practice, and co-operation are all part of governance and government.

                You may have discovered that a motor may spin out of control so people install a governor on it which slows it down or stops it. People have learned to put a governor on themselves, but have learned that some kind of governors are more likely to act up and get out of control and have learned that a drunken king is more likely to spin out of control than are the citizens of a republic.

                Governance can be seen as a kind of taking care of. We tend to get better care when we take some responsibility for that care. So, it is my hope that we will practice a governance of ourselves, our families, our town, our team, our county, and more. I believe there are plenty of use to do this without anyone feeling overloaded.

                Let me write more about citizenship. Most of us have been citizens and so know something about citizenship. Some tend to think of it as a set of rights, without thinking of the ongoing maintenance that those rights require. Citizenship is the practice of the skills of governance in of  a state as a recognized member or citizen of that state. Active citizenship is the practice and using those skills in a lively and active manner. Citizenship is usually a legal position having a set of rules and laws agreed on to regulate citizen behavior. In republics and democracies the rules and laws are made by the people. The laws and rules are usually not burdensome. However, in citizenship there are usually duties and rights which may be claimed by citizens. At time those claims may prove a burden. However, not claiming them often proves troublesome. Not claiming duties and rights can cause many personal and social losses. Not claiming ones duties and rights can cause the loss of rights, citizenship,liberty, duties, happiness, state, home, and life; not just one's own. but als one's family, friends, fellow citizens, happiness. The losses are likely to extend to those who may have been able to enjoy your state in years to come. When not so very many of us fail to claim and practice our rights and duties our state moves toward failure. The first deady step toward such failure is often the failure of dialogue about our cooperation. The first step in that dialogue is listening for understanding and meaning.

                    In perhaps all republics it is legal for a citizen to "lobby" other citizens. 'Lobby" is not a legal term. It's a good word, but it is very seldomly used in a legal documents, contracts, or courts. In definition, it could be the practice of doing what one can to persuade others, as might a teacher, preacher, propagandist, or other. However, it is more often used in persuading citizens or their representatives in legal or political situations to act in a way congenial to your purposes. Perhaps in routing traffic to avoid a school to prevent children from being struck by a vehicle while crossing the street in front of their school. Lobbying is much like milk, it can be good, bad, sour, sweet, etc. So there is honorable lobbying, but it is not always so. It is a word much used in modern politics.   

                    Lobbying can be a sort of encouragement. For example you could try to persuade fellow citizens to organize to help each other to practice teaching each one another about governance, citizenship, and organizing. Seems like a lot.  Trying to get your high school, school board to open a night school with that topic could be a case of lobbying. 

                    

                    There is a lack of knowledge about politics among us. It is the way we have come to work out our without violence or bloodshed. Some have come to think of  "politics" as a bad word and that it is not useful. The way we practice it is not great, but it is a lot better then killing one another. It would be better if we listened better for the other guys meanings, practiced more dialogue, and became a bit more active in our own governance it could be a lot better. Politics is much like milk is to many of us. It can be sweet and it can be sour, and it can become a bit cheesy. We just learn how to use it. Politics is a name of a way for a way we co-operate to govern ourselves. Like any job or duty, it can be done, poorly. or worse. 

Check online or your in or in your dictionary for the definition of politics. Pick out the best of what you find and you will come close to the way I usually use the word. In fact you can check out all the words like citizenship, government, republic, democracy, and others. Pick out the best of each and go for it.

Using our knowledge:

                  Anyway, I would be proud and pleased to be lobbied to be lobbied to be part of a group group dedicated to helping on another to learn the nature of and doing of politics, governance, democracy, republicanism, and citizenship. And also to learn about being a useful citizen of my neighborhood, city, town, county, state, or nation. It seems good to learn how to take care of our polity together.

                    As an American, as a citizen of the United States, I would like to learn with others about our Constitution including an up-to-date understanding of it's amendments.  And more importantly, how to use it in governance, democratically as a good citizen. Recently I have been mostly been thinking about being an effective citizen at the national level. However, it seems to make more sense to learn how a democratic republic is worked at the town or county level, or even at the neighborhood level in a city, or at  a school-board level, or in a number of ways closer to home. I believe one could learn to me more active at both a state or national level and at a local level and do so effectively with some satisfaction. By showing up at party meetings of  say the Green, Republican, or Democrat party, one might be able to learn more about local and national governance almost at the same time. Just a meeting of 3 or 4 or 7 or 11 of persons near me to consider how to better use our Constitution to govern ourselves could be instructive fun.

                    These days I find myself much less interested in candidates and parties and more interested in bills, issues, laws, and the workings of getting good important doings done and maintained. So, I could say my interests is more in platforms, planks and happy and proud citizens. I would also be pleased to have good orientations, good goals, and good successes. I find that the 20 or so national parties in the US still have and publish platforms and planks. With the US citizens reading here I would like to look over and consider some of those planks and discover the ones which of them are most liked and important among us. At the moment, planks with plans to promote citizen participation and education in democratic governance seems interesting to me. 

                    There are times when we feel that we can use all the help we can get. That be true or not. But there are times when help is very welcome and perhaps vital. Much of the time we need very little help and often that is all we get. However, there is much we could teach one another and doing that teaching could be very helpful. I think that it is possible to make time to be helped. It could be a pleasure to learn from an other or to teach an other. For example as we taught each other, we might learn more effective ways to support our better Representatives to work more effectively for our own good, the good of the country. With practice in doing this together even when our "goods" were not exactly the same, we could give impatice to happenings good for one another, our children and youth and for the state of our land in general. We can learn and practice as we will.

Practicing our knowledge

                We can learn a lot about our mutual governance and we can help each other to practice that which we learn. I have voted, demonstrated, read the newspaper, listened to news and watched it on TV. I use my computer to learn, gather information, and communicate. I have participated in campaigns and have attended political meetings a little. I have been teaching myself about self governance, active citizenship, and active democracy. I believe that I could make more progress in a group and enjoy it. I think that members of such a group can learn more, do more, and find more satisfaction than they can by only learning and doing as individuals.

                I sure don't want todo governance until I drop. I believe that there are ways to do enough without doing what feels like too much. One way to do that is to eliminate that which interests us least. I am now less interested in parties and candidates and am more interested in issues and planks. We are free and can portion our time as we will. Governance and politics entail more than candidates and parties; so, I can still be interested in politics when I want to. I can even try to help a candidate whom I believe can successfully move forward an issue important to me.

Show up

                An important part of citizenship, and of much else, is showing up. You can find opportunities to show up. Many find voting such an opportunity others find public demonstrations a welcome opportunity. The learning about issues important to one and sharing that learning with others is a opportunity for some to show up. Others find their opportunity in co-operating in the resolution and implementation of an issue. Others find theirs at a school board meeting or city council meeting. There are many ways to co-operate to keep, for example, your town, or your nation operating well. 

                To do anything well there is usually some learning to do. Practice is a great aid to learning. There is a limited amount that an individual can or wants to do. Nearly everyone has some ability to co-operate. Others have the ability to listen carefully. Some have said that one way not to spread oneself too thin is to think globally and to act locally. This sounds good and has helped some. Most of us can show up and listen and perhaps co-operate.

                We can show up and listen with the purpose of understanding. We could show where others are doing active citizenship democratically. Personally I find that listening at a school board meeting is more interesting than hanging out at my polling place. Thank goodness that we do not all have the same likes and dislikes.

                Some find city council meetings more interesting. Finding out where a given councilman likes to see city funds spent might interest me for a whole meeting. Political party meetings could be a place worth showing up at. One might find Green Party meetings where things are getting done is of interest. Listening to people where they are co-operating to act on an important social issue could interest another.

                Listening does not interest anyone forever, but it is often best to listen and understand enough to keep one's foot out of one's mouth before speaking much. So, it is best to listen a bit to see how active citizenship is being practiced in a given situation. By listening you can come to  better understand how active citizenship is practiced there and how the issue is understood.

Co-operation:

                We know something about co-operation and co-operating. Co-operating is a lot. It is an important and useful early and ongoing activity. It is important for citizenship, organization, and governance. It is a step toward well practiced governance. It is important to co-operate with one another and it is also beneficial to be aware of co-operating with our learning process. We can have some fun with awareness of this learning process it can keep us from being bored by believing that we know everything or even enough. To be effective active citizens we keep our co-operation skills in good shape. Remember one skill and practice is showing up.

                Perhaps we are setting ourselves, here and now, on the road to developing darn good governance skills. Perhaps our co-operation skills are developing into citizenship skills, which can lead us to active democracy and even real governance of the people, by the people, and for the people.

                I suspect that these interesting skills have begun to consider can lead to valuable and interesting side effects. Perhaps some of us can even upgrade some some individual self care skills which some believe are part associated with political self governance. We can also upgrade our communication skills, especially the oral communication skills of groups.

                So, practicing care of ourselves individually and as part of a polity is important to good citizens and to good citizenship. And, we often find that taking part in democratic conversation group is a practical and fun practice.

                We could even begin to consider how to increase our understanding of the nature of self governance as a form of taking care of our selves individually, politically, socially, publically, nationally, and more. Some consider accepting such responsibility a pleasing honor. We can learn much from one another and each other. It is well done with showing-up and co-operating. There is a big variety of useful, interesting and fun doings and happenings which come with increased understanding the sharing of care. That includes the process of governance, especially when done with active citizenship and democracy.

Active:

                It's about doing. Some citizens want to better understand the intentions and practices of their presten government, be it town or national. Some consider how to do that. Consideration is good and almost active. When  your consideration leads you to a town council meeting you are active. Others want to understand the gathering and sharing of information which is of value to fellow citizens. Attending a meeting of active citizens can be considered a purposeful doing of an active citizen. Your doings your activities are up to you. Some get active organizing meetings or gatherings. Some find planks or issues which feel important and they find a way to support that plank or issue. Some look at alternatives to self governance and bring their findings to others. Others do what they can to bring a bit more active democracy to public meetings. Some find it satisfying and easy to get active in party politics.

                Just sharing some info here can count as active. Tell what you find out about real active democracy doings or the doings of active citizens, including yourself.

                This essay or post is different from many of my posts in that it is both longer than many and more chatty than most. I hope it includes values for you.

                Healthy citizenship.

                Thank you for reading!

                                                                                                        RCS

         

        

Learn to Organize as You Organize to Learn

 Co-operation:

                There is a hope among many that we can effectively co-operate for our mutual well-being; co-operate for the well being of our health, education, economy, civic life, and more. We know about co-operation, but too many of are out of practice.

Organize:

                In order to organize for fair and practical results, we need to learn to co-operate better than usual. Better co-operation takes talk which includes better listening and hearing; it most often takes face to face communication. To get on a well understood same track or same page usually takes an ongoing conversation or dialogue. Carrying on a dialogue effective takes some practice. Such practice takes place in a dialogue group.

Practice:

                You can practice such dialogue as we teach each other the nature of the dialogue, as we teach one another, say, active citizenship, self governance, participatory democracy, appropriate mutual trust.

Learn:

                Learning to practice the dialogue effectively can be an important first step to more effective co-operation. Learning to to use the dialogue is a very useful early step in many collective activities and may be vital throughout those activities. The practice of the dialogue makes us more understanding co-operaters and more effective doers. 

Dialogue:  

                Use of the dialogue is a great aid to organizing to learn, as we become more effective organizers. The dialogue leads us to be more meaningful listeners and understanders. It is a democratic way to think together so as to be thoughtful and effective individuals of useful action. It is a democratic way to think together so as to be free, thoughtful, and effective people of good and useful action. Powerful, beautiful, broadly meaningful, and good action results when you so will.

Action:

~ Powerful co-operation results for those who practice learning to more truly understand one another.

~ Practicing democratic listening results in more powerful understanding.

~ We develop powerful understanding by practicing the dialogue and so coming to better use it.

~ The dialogue is simple, but it does take practice.

~ The practice is effective when it takes place in a dialogue group.

~ I dialogue group begins when two people find a third person to practice with them.

Check out these two sites;

~ Governance With RCS

and

~ Dialogue With RCS

                

                Thank you for reading; may it lead to reasoned action.

                                                                                                                        rcs

                                                                                                  

             

                 

           

Two Steps to Better Citizenship and to Better Government

This is an introduction to a two step way to better governance

Taking one step beyond the step beyond takes one far:

                    Try this method on one of the questions below. Say something about the method in "comments" below this post. Or, better yet, say something specific about one of the questions.

                    Try your best to give an answer two one or two of the questions below. Then, considering the question and your answer to it, consider a useful next step which you could take. Briefly, that is the two step method.

Here are some starting questions for you. You can pretend that they are your own:

~ How do I begin to trust?

~ How might I evaluate the air I breath?

~ Who can I talk with about these questions?

~ What do I know about how our local water problems are being solved?

~ Who around me covers local political doings around us and passes on the info?

~ Why do bond issues keep being past even though we know that they increase our common debt.

~ How do I find answer to questions about citizenship, government, governance and the like?

~ How can I get useful answers from a source that knows more about what is going on than I do?

~ How am I getting my questions answered?

~ As we lapse into ignorance about the doings and happenings around us, what is becoming of us.

What can I do to take better care of myself: socially, politically, as a citizen, as part of my community?

~ How do I usefully identify local problems which effect me? I mean our real local, critical, long range situations now?

~ What is democracy good for? 

~ How do I tell how one thing is truer than another?

~ How can I keep in better touch with with the doings of our town, city, county, or state? 

~ How can I more usefully co-operate with others?

~ How do I show up?

~ How do I participate?

~ What now links. public officials to voters?

~ With whom do I talk it over? Or, Who do I talk about it with? 

~ How do we form a common understanding of that which is important to us now?

~ Who are we?

~ What am I willing to do to take better care of myself as a part of a community, as a citizen, politicly, socially.

~ Where might usefully show up?

~ What real question of mine will I find answers to?

                    You could find notions, points of views, and a few facts among the other posts essays, and videos on this blogsite useful and/or interesting. There are several apps here to help you explore this site.

                    Take care of yourself.

                                                                                        bye for now,

                                                                                        Richard 

Co-operation: vital to governance

 Governance begins with co-operation and ends without co-operation.

Co-operation:              

                        We know what co-operation is and we have some idea of how to do it. It takes some attention and practice. It's working together, sometimes with no boss. For a wise man it is working together for our mutual benefits with the clear awareness that it benefits each of us personally as well. With practice we can make it work for us very well. 

                        C0-operation is an art or craft that nearly all of us know something about. It is a bit like "If you'll scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" So, its a reciprocal process. Even so, there is much that we can learn about it. I believe that we can and should learn more of the use and practice of co-operation.

                        Co-operation can lead us to friendship, trust, brotherhood, and sisterhood to. We learn more about people in co-operation by: working with them, observing them, listening to them, and talking with them. 

                        Co-operation is vital for self-governance. For me self governance is taking care of ourselves. Taking care of one's self is mostly a co-operative affair these days, even though it is still much like being one's own boss. We also do self-governance together with others for our mutual benefit. Governance can be about government and Government with a capital G. Government can be about taking care of our state, city, town, school, or about finding a place to put up a basketball court, planning how to do it, and doing it. Of course doing this kind of governance is best done with co-operation, we work together. In democratic governance the working together can bring especially good effects.

                        Co-operating may be humanities best activities. It is certainly one of our most useful activities. One of our greatest powers as a society is the power to co-operate for our common good. Co-operation is a powerful good and an important step in organization.

                      

Organization:

                        Co-operation can usually includes being supported by those you support or being helped by those you help. It can be long term as in a family, a business, or a county, but it can be short term as in a piece of work for a limited purpose. Organization is very similar.

                        Just knowing something about what co-operation is, gives us a reason to practice it with some gratitude. we know that we can work together for our mutual good. Doing so in a democratic way can be even more satisfying because the individuals so co-operating because of the satisfying feeling of equality. Each co-operator is valued. We know that working together can get us through some tough times. In tough times it can keep us safe. In better times it improves our chances for an abundant life among supportive others. Well organized co-operation can do so even more effectively.

                        Co-operation can be particularly important in hard times and not just at critical moments  or in urgent cases, but in every-day difficult times. Who has live a year with no difficult times. It is sometimes difficult to get through a month in which a little co-operation would have helped. Its a nice feeling that there are people are around to help even when you don't need it. In some tough times some co-operation could have helped me, but I didn't realize what I had to offer. However, over the years men and women have worked out effective and informal ways of getting to better days. We practiced co-operation in clubs, families, unions businesses, towns, cities, counties, and other organizations.

Without co-operation, organization may be impossible:

                        It is especially useful to co-operate well in times of unusually rapid change. Earth changes such as climate change seems to be getting to be that kind of change. It is possible for us to organize to better adapt to Earth changes such as climate change.

Dialogue is necessary for nearly all  good co-operation and organization:

                        Very often I use the word "dialogue" to refer to a special kind of talk. For us, right now, let it just mean good listening and clear talk. We can come to know one another better and to co-operate better. We can greatly improve our chances for effective co-operation by listening to each other better and talking with one another honestly. Listening and talking for meaning and understanding helps us to more effectively co-operate. Our ongoing dialogue is important.

                        For a higher level of co-operation, a more effective mode of communication is very useful. Face to face dialogue is an example of a mode of communication. I such dialogue we listen for meaning and understanding. We often benefit greatly from learning to co-operate with persons very different from ourselves. We come to listen more effectively for their meanings and their understandings. Their life experience is likely to have been significantly different from ours so they may have learned a point of view different from ours. Its that better listening leads to better co-operation and more effective organization. We can practice better listening. As we know, we can better co-operate by informing and being informed so as to come to necessary understandings. 

Practices which can aid co-operation, governance, dialogue, and effective organization:

Good practices include:

~ sharing leadership.

~  offering suggestions rather than commands.

~ showing gratitude, praise, and respect for co-operation which effectively moves us closer to achieving our common goals.

~ doing useful work. 

~ appreciating the import of our common efforts and aims.

~ sharing our understanding of our common benefits.

~ trying to really understand the problem.

~ trying to understand the other guy's ideas.

~ explaining the reasons for requests and rules.

~ taking turns talking, listening, waiting, leading, getting things done.

~ practicing participation.

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                                                                                                RCS

Organization, Effective Citizenship, and the Power to Do

                  Organization, Effective Citizenship, and the Power to Do and what it is About

                Your organization can make you a more effective citizen. There seems to be a new or renewed urge toward new political organization and active citizenship these days. Many of us have a growing understanding of democracy. We see that more active citizenship brings more democracy.

                A new organization is much like an old organization. It takes people to organize, but many of those organizing are new, not old. Persons new to organizing, especially political organizing, have a lot to learn. Their energy and enthusiasm will be an important aid to their progress. 

                An organization may have a beginning in individual minds, but its realization will be in a group. A group of people is most often a mess and a mess of people is not an organization. To become an organization there are doings such a mess of people must do. They can begin with a bit of togetherness and continue with a growing ability to cooperate. 

                Agreement that a new organization is necessary or a darn good idea can be a useful beginning. Agreement, perhaps tacit, to work together can be another important step. Finding ways to cooperate is important. Old organizers found many ways to facilitate cooperation.

                Soon the purpose of the organization must begin to be identified and clarified. Clarification of purpose is an ongoing process and activity. This may often be begun by a small group of leaders, but must be carried on by many others.

                Say that the original growing group is made up of citizens who have discovered that they want a brand new political organization. They have some willingness to work together. The also have understandings and misunderstandings to work out. A lot of work.

                Members of this very new organization need to maintain an ongoing understanding of the aims, values, and wants of others in the organization in so far as they affect the organization. Not easy, but important to their ability to increase their effectiveness.

                An important benefit of an organization is that which needs to be done, need not be done by one or a very few, but rather can be shared among and by all members. In fact the more involved with the important work of the organization that are all members, the better the moral and effectiveness of the organization is likely to be. 

                The members of a well functioning group can feel themselves to be effective doers, and can be those effective doers in fact.

                There are some doings and practices which have helped others to start and maintain their organization.

Doings and practices to begin promptly:

~ Consider how you intend to keep in contact.

~ Begin identifying your goals and aims.

~ Clarify goals and aims.

~ Restate goals and aims.

~ Arrange to have each member help to achieve these goals and aims.

~ Take care of all business promptly.

~ Arrange for the ongoing education for all members.

~ Practice dialogue skills.

~ Arrange for members to have opportunity to be educators.

~ Enjoy your participation.

~ Keep in mind that teaching one another is important. Outside help can be very good, but seldom as good as that which we do for ourselves. As we teach, we learn.

~ Demonstrate abundant and appropriate trust of one another.

~ Keep in mind that the fewer the secrets the better. "No secrets" is a good policy.

~ Be inclusive.  as a policy, help anyone who wants to be a member to be one.

~ Encourage equality.

~ Remind one another that each of you is important to and responsible for the maintenance of your organization, its philosophy, and its doings.

~ Lay out clear steps for achieving important and doable goals and plans for your organization.

~ Aims and goals ought to be not only doable and important but also be an attractive and challenging big deal.

~ Set out one or two doings or goals to be worked on today. Your organization will benefit by having important things to be done right now.

~ Keep in mind that there is much to be done and that each member ought to help with those doings.

~ Make clarifying the "grand vision" of your organization an ongoing activity. "Learning, teaching, and practicing democratic self governance for all" might be an example of such a vision.

~ Aim to govern yourselves by practicing self-governance.

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                                                                                              rcs