Lack of Community

So, Covid robbed all of us of our little communities - from family to knitting groups, symphonies, courses, and quilting groups.

But I want to talk about a lack of community from ten to fifteen years ago, I forget how many, because since I retired and Covid came I can barely remember the year I was born, much less any details since then. 

For one year I was the project coordinator for a quilting group I was a part of. I worked very hard, but with little success. At the end of the year I made a poll asking the members what techniques they wanted teachers for, and they requested every single technique I had handled during my tenure. So...not much success there!

No hard feelings -- after all, I might just not be the teacher I thought I was!

But one project I proposed that didn't get accepted still rankles with me, and I've finally processed it's rejection and come to an opinion, ten or so years later. And that was a "Community" project. Community as in old-time, nearly Amish, quilting bee sort of idea.

Here was the plan.

Firstly, people would enter their names in a hat, sort of a lottery or drawing. Everyone who submitted their names was committing to quilting the project. The person who "won" the drawing got to have the help of the others participants in quilting one of their own quilts. 

You couldn't win more than once, and if you won you committed to participating the next year.

Basically it was a lottery to get help hand-quilting your own quilt. I had in mind the way I imagined quilting bees were done in the olden days - a lot of women helping each there get their quilts finished. A community of quilters helping each other get their quilts done quicker than they could finish by themselves.

Now, this wasn't too far off the kind of "lotteries" the group was already doing. Their "ordinary" drawings involved the group piecing and quilting a quilt and then the drawing would take place amongst all the participants to decide who would win said quilt. My plan simply involved an individual's quilt being quilted by the group who would all know ahead of time they were helping a member get their quilt done.

It never made it to the group. The steering committee looked at me with utterly blank faces and said, as one, "Why in the world would anyone want to participate in that?"

They honestly could not understand the point.

The point was being helpful to one of our own members.

The point was for the winner to get help and end up with a quilt finished in one tenth the time.

The point was for the winner to end up with a quilt they liked, instead of a pattern decided by a group of people with tastes different from their own.

The point was to act like a community.

Well, only a small minority understood the point, and the project never happened. So now, after ten or more years, I have come up with the retort I should have given when it was voted down.

"You must all be conservatives."

Seriously, they could not see the value of putting their effort into knowingly giving a helping hand to another member, even though the following years they might themselves benefit from such a lottery. Nope, they would only help out in a year if and only if they might themselves win that same year, even if the quilt they might win was not to their particular taste.

The LEFT seeks to benefit people.

The RIGHT seeks to benefit themselves.

Pardon me for giving a f**k about my neighbour's quilts.