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I want to coordinate GenXDC to reinvigorate the group, restructure the communications, and reunite DC's gay and Bear community with Gen-X DC. 1.) Reinvigorate: The list has been dormant while people are talking to each other constantly on LiveJournal. The community remains strong, but there is no group identity. While we have discovered the joys of self-promotion, self-publishing, journals, comments, and being able to exclude those we dislike, we have lost the challenge and rewards of collective conversation. I believe there can be a way for Gen-X DC to flourish as a group community and on LJ. Before I decided to run again for coordinator, I asked a number of you for specific help in planning events and activities over the next year. The positive response has been heartening. Right now there are a half-dozen people I have spoken with who have agreed to help plan dinners, movies, special events and meetups, and if I am selected to coordinate Gen-X DC I'll take the lead and get these things going again. 2.) Restructure: Ten years ago, after years of Bear communities forming official clubs and being part of the bar community, young Bears and Cubs turned to the Internet and created a new type of Bear social structure in order to find one another, meet, mate, make friends, make enemies, and make communities. Gen-X DC was part of this movement, holding house parties, dinners, movies, and picnics. Everything was new. Armed with a mailing list and a static website, Gen-X DC followed a basic structure that worked well in the late 90's. In the new millennium one of our biggest challenges was keeping a larger Gen-X DC community informed of events and invites, while not requiring everyone to read the high-traffic e-mail list. But Yahoogroups lay undeveloped. The web was not yet where we needed it to be. Today, Gen-X DC has fallen behind. With tools like Google, the iCal format, blogs, LJ, etc., there are a number of ways we can re-form our communications. I envision a larger community that uses the GenXDC website as a hub not only to see static upcoming listings, but to interact with other members, plan new events, meet new people, read the list, and keep in touch with what is really going on in DC. The Gen-X Bear movement was supposed to be a new way of doing things, a better way, but we have fallen short. I'd like Gen-X DC to figure out how it can be done with tomorrow's Internet. 3.) Reunite: Because general people had a tough time keeping up with the list and knowing what activities were going on, the list became a tight-knit community, which dwindled membership activity and showed the weakness in the mailing-list-only way of communicating. If Gen-X DC is truly a community, we need to reunite the larger GenX community in DC with the small core group on the mailing list. We need to open ourselves and invite everyone - everyone, once again! - to be part of a large community of people of wide interests, but who share a common social bond. Restructuring ourselves technically is key, but just as important is our willingness and desire to be part of the larger community. When I go to LJ, Bear Happy Hour or Blowoff, I see a wide variety of people in the Bear community, and I see Gen-X DC playing a part inviting that larger community to be a part of a better Gen-X DC. Look, the basic thing is this: we've been beat down, bored by the drama, and torn between wishing for something new and longing for the good-old days. Let's fix that. DC needs something new. Let's stir it up a bit. '( '-' )' Bearnaked Joe |