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Intentional Communities Newsletter: January 3, 2012
Promoting Community Living & Cooperative Lifestyles
Communities magazine, Directory, Video, and more
Before we blow out the candle on 2011, it's appropriate to take a moment
to celebrate some highlights of what FIC did in the past 12 months to
make the light of community burn more brightly...
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Increasing Traffic on the Infobahn. FIC now receives
2400 unique visits to our family of websites every day, and
that number is growing by 10-15% annually.
Our Facebook
Cause now has over 6000 members―a 50% surge from this
time a year ago. To date, we've raised more than $1500 through
this social networking medium. There are 1600 folks who "like"
Communities magazine's Facebook
page. Over 12,000 folks receive these weekly eNews
transmissions.
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Community on DVD, and in Movie Theaters. At the end
of 2010 we offered for the first time the NTSC-format
version of A New We, a
video produced by Austrian videographer Stefan Wolf, profiling 10
different European communities focusing on sustainability. This has sold
so well that we added Joy Truskowski's
Seeking
the Good Life in America.
In the coming year we expect to offer Within Reach, Ryan Mlynarczyk
& Mandy Creighton's video about their epic two-year bike tour of 100
US intentional communities. Click
videos for a list of all our DVD offerings.
What's more, there's a major motion picture being released Feb 24
called Wanderlust.
It's a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd
as a Manhattan couple who lose their jobs and try living on
a rural commune. While we expect this movie to be full of stereotypes
that will make us wince, it nonetheless represents significant
media exposure and an occasion for a conversation.
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| Getting More Artful about Community.
Our new Events Team put together a stellar production
last fall in Occidental CA-the Art of Community weekend. Over 250
attended and it went so well we've agreed to a return engagement this
coming year-
Sept 21-23 at the same location. Mark your calendars now,
and visit Art of Community for
the latest news.
In addition, FIC played a strong support role at a number of other
community events: the
Communities Conference at The Farm in May, the national cohousing
conference in DC last June,
the Twin Oaks Communities Conference in August, and the NASCO Institute
in Ann Arbor last Nov.
This spring we'll be celebrating FIC's 25th anniversary with a large
party
in Durham NC, April 21, in conjunction with our spring
organizational meetings. Bring your party hat and help us
cheer in our next quarter century.
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Communities
Magazine. Our flagship periodical keeps getting better
and better. Last year subscriptions edged up 3%, based on issues focused
on the following themes:
- Mental Health: Challenges and Hope
- Intimacy
- Right Livelihood
- Permaculture
In 2012 we'll tackle:
- Spirituality
- Diversity
- Ecovillages
- Endings and Beginnings
If you subscribe today
you won't miss a single issue!
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Directory Selling Like Hot Cakes.
We sold over 900 copies of our new edition Communities
Directory last year, and we'll be facing the pleasant
problem of needing to reprint it in the first quarter of 2012.
That means the book sold at least 25% stronger than the previous
edition in the first year of its release. Demand for up-to-date
information on community living is on the rise!
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Occupy, Transition Towns, and Sustainability Programs on
Campus. Beyond the growing demand for
information about intentional communities, there is increasing
dissatisfaction with a lack of civility, neighborliness,
and human-scaled problem solving in the mainstream society. The hunger
for more cooperative ways to interact is growing,
and this is showing up in a variety of ways:
- The surprisingly strong Occupy
movement
was characterized by a near-universal commitment to make decisions
at action sites using consensus.
- Officially designated Transition Town initiatives
have now topped 100 in the US (with more than 400 worldwide). These
are local groups wrestling with how to develop grass roots responses
to the challenges of Peak Oil and Climate Change. In every case this
translates to local communities looking at what it will take to be
much more locally resilient-something FIC knows a lot about.
- In response to student demand, Sustainability
programs have been sprouting up on campuses across
the country like mushrooms after a spring rain. FIC is trying to partner
with universities in an effort to make on-the-ground
learning available in the classroom.
We hope you've
enjoyed all we've done
to make 2011 a great year for community. The FIC's monetary lifeline is
built around sales of our products, augmented by donations from
people like you who support our efforts to promote community and
cooperative living. Three of the best ways to show your appreciation for
what we do is to become an FIC
member, subscribe to
Communities, or make a
donation.
If you really want to get our attention, do all three!
Meanwhile, thanks for a wonderful year. Based on all
our efforts, and all you do to
support the FIC and promote community, together we are making a
difference!
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