how do you do this again?

[randomling]

Making a rare public post. And a rare post, come tot hat.

Like most everyone I've seen post anything on the internet today, I am shocked, I am angry, I am horrified and terrified. I think we need community more than ever. I sure as hell do.

kaberett is holding a very timely love meme. My thread is here, or will be when it's unscreened. I'll try to keep up, but feel free to link me to yours in the comments.

Given that I'm not the only person who's wondering how the hell to make a difference on low-to-no-spoons in this increasingly shitty climate, I've been wondering how to organise that. Because of spoon and brain reasons (I'm not a very steady person, I tend to come and go with interests and I sort of need advance permission to burn out and disappear for large chunks of time) I'd need a co-mod or three and probably some discussion about how to set it up and what we might want to do. I'm thinking of a name like spoonless_activists or something?

The problem with being disabled is we often don't have the spare resources to spend on the stuff that might change the world. But maybe if we organise we could do... something? Even if it becomes a place to signal-boost petitions, fundraisers and community events and nothing more, that's a start. And maybe we can find something to do with it.

What do you think, people? Anyone want to join this effort or have any ideas?

Comments

[the_rck]

I know I want something I can do, but I've been at a loss as to what. I have trouble leaving the house (agoraphobia). I can't make phone calls because they wreck me. I can't drive, and I can't walk very far at all. I have very little money to give, and what I have I tend to aim at the local food bank or at things for my daughter's school.

[rmc28]

I think there have got to be things you can do by online communication alone, as and when you can, and I am personally very interested in finding/building systems that allow people to do so.

I'm thinking:
* helping moderate a community
* organising a community to-do list, and a resource list
* researching existing organisations and models that work well for distributed online contributers (e.g. DW contributers?)
* working up to the kind of things mentioned by davidgillon: research and analysis and written communications

I sort of want a system where people can come and see a list of things they can do, with an estimate of task size, and pick something up and do it. But one of the things to do is keeping that list / estimate up to date, and breaking down tasks into small chunks that can be done ...

[green_knight]

That sounds like a call for a project manager and a good online project management system...

(I, too, am looking for things to do, and a distributed system where I could work as much as I have time/spoons for without letting people down would be ideal.)

[randomling]

Yeah - I have no idea where to find a good project management system, and I'm not sure I have the spoons to do all the project management for an effort like this, but if we could find a way to distribute the project management too it might work.

[randomling]

Yes, this sounds like exactly the kind of thing I wanted to to put together - I think the trick will probably be critical mass of people (so we have enough people/resources to cover the basic needs of keeping the community running even if people are sick or busy or otherwise need to sit out for a bit).

So - yeah, figuring out the list itself and how to maintain it and so on is part of the task, I guess!

The community is incoming. :D

[cesy]

If you have time to spend online and are happy to either write emails to strangers or learn/do coding, there will be stuff. I have a recent example - our local Refugees Welcome group desperately needed a few people to help answer emails and manage our facebook and twitter. You don't actually need to be in our location for that, just learn the stock answers and email someone for help when you hit a complex one. We've currently got more volunteers than I have time to reply to, but there will be others like that. If you or one of the other commenters here prods me in a few days when I'll have holiday and spare time to think, I'll probably be able to come up with existing organisations to help you connect with groups like that.

Also, creating art is an important act in and of itself, if that's one of your things.

[the_rck]

I'm willing to write emails. I'm not sure about coding because the last time I did anything similar was 1983, high school, programming in Basic on a Commodore 64.

I hesitate to commit to anything big because that can wreck me.

[cesy]

info@wandsworthrefugees.org are still in need of help dealing with emails.

http://www.refugees-welcome.org.uk/refugeeswelcome-groups-training-action/ has a list of local groups with email contacts, so you can try the one nearest you.

https://do-it.org/ is a great idea in theory. If you click more options, there's a "do it from home" filter.

If you want to get back into coding, there are open source projects that are happy to teach people from scratch, so you'd have a head start already having done some Basic.

[the_rck]

Thank you for the links. I'm in the US, so they're not quite a match for what I need, but they're a reminder that there are likely to be options.

[randomling]

Oh, that's awesome, I had no idea something like that existed!

I'm not sure if you're on holiday yet, but if you have time to ferret such things out, that'd be fantastic.

(And speaking of art, I'm trying to gather the spoons together to figure out how to edit my book, edit it, and then try to get it published...)

[cesy]

http://www.refugees-welcome.org.uk/refugeeswelcome-groups-training-action/ has a list of local groups with email contacts, so you can try the one nearest you.

https://do-it.org/ is a great idea in theory. If you click more options, there's a "do it from home" filter.

Volunteering to be a trustee can sometimes be a good option, if the charity is happy to have you dial in to a conference call for meetings, or if you can get there in person occasionally (usually once every three months for about 2 hours). Then you answer emails in between meetings.

[randomling]

Yeah, with a few modifications this is pretty much where I am. I'm gonna make this community, I'll advertise it when I do!