Hi Dunk (and all the others of course) alx here ... some thoughts about your pre-occupations you mentioned in my weblog.

easa I think that the weakness and at the same time the strength of easa might be it's impermanent aspect.

People meeting there are having their lives and most probably a lot to do else than trying to hold permanent contact. That might be considered being weakness.

On the other hand, just becos they are living their very different lives without being in touch all the time, it's all the more interesting to meet once or twice a year altogether (300-500 people - you should take care not to exagerate ;-) ). I think what matters is not the quantity of inforamtion we communicate but the quality and density.

Certain things are meant to emerge for a certain time and then disapear for another while to better re-appear later again (remember those kinda mushrooms in the woods which are constituted of a multitude of individual "units" that small that they cannot be seen and which are forming something strong when conditions are good? and then disappering later).

Most easa people are having some few contacts according to their affinities, but those contacts are not necessarily "big movements" and they don't have to to be efficient. It's in those little links that easa-spirit is kept alive.

If people do not communicate here, it might be because it's a public place. People behave differently when being in different groups and differently than they would when being alone. The whole is not just the sum of the parts - remember? So people being at home in their context and "social networks" do not behave as they did in the easa-network which emerges once a year. Sorry if I'm not very clear ... I hope most of you should be able to understand in between the written lines what I meant.

ark-schools There too I'd think about the scale of steps to take and to consider. As I said already somewhere else here: little steps on a way - quite unseen - are often more efficient than big once. If big once can be taken - all the better, but no one should be frustrated if that doesnt work when trying to make big steps. Most important is not the speed at which a way is gone but the fact that it is gone. And making little steps you often can be more careful about "details" you oversee when trying to take several stairs at once. (You remember the hypersensibility of any system to it's initial conditions? slight differences in "details" can make a big big difference. We should be careful about details).

In my school infrastructure is bad, very bad. But in some way, just because there's just nothing, we - or most of us - learned and are learning a lot. And some of us learned about the importance of communication (intuitively). We had a drawing room, where some years ago a class started just selling drinks (it's very hot there in summer), and little by little, that became a real little bar given over year by year from one class to another. After selling just drinks, some made it more comfortable bringing some seads along, another year we changed the whole configuration of the room - and every two years it seems that it's getting more and more an experimental field for little interventions on a space we - as a group - appropriate ourselves. There's work there, exchange, laughing, thinking together (all through the different years/classes), a year ago even the civil engineers discovered this room as being not that bad and they are spending their lunchtime with us sometimes and evenare working sometimes with us.

It's actually not a big deal, but if I tell you that, it's just to show you that little steps - just done because some small group of person thought them right to be taken - are moving things ahead. But one has to be patient to realize that they did.

Recently I wanted to try to get them to online com-spaces and made another weblog: macademia.antville.org It's not a big deal neither - just a little step in a direction I feel being right. I'm curious to see at what pace that way is gonna be taken - either way it's gonna be okay.

So, yes, I'm still networking ... alx