Hey everyone welcome to the first discussion thread. I decided to start with something that most people have an opinion on ‘EASA Spirit’. The EASA guide says “The essence of the EASA, since its beginning in Liverpool in 1981, is maintained by the ‘EASA spirit’ - easy to feel but difficult to describe.” Obviously part of this is true, the friends, workshops, connections and good times, the shared experience that keeps you coming back to EASA events, but it does have other manifestations that are more easily described. For example it is EASA spirit that motivates someone from being a participant through to being an NC, Tutor or even an Organiser. You give your time and effort for no real personal gain but in an attempt to further the community and event. It is this feeling of responsibility for EASA that truly defines ‘EASA Spirit’. This is not to say that people who have never become NC’s, Tutors or Organisers do not feel a responsibility to EASA but I think it is something that at the level of participant really needs to be looked at. The idea that doing set duties absolves people from other responsibilities, feeling they have done their part for the event, rather than everyone pulling their own weight throughout the whole event, is quite widespread. This idea of everyone taking more responsibility for themselves and the event is actually mentioned in the EASA guide however I feel that more and more the organisers end up taking responsibility for too many small simple tasks that most of us would have no problem doing in our own houses. I think it would be quite easy for NC’s to possibly arrive one or two days earlier than participants, obviously to help the organisers with the final preparation but also to be given a walkthrough of the site and explained where many of the things that would be required for daily tasks can be found. It would then be NC’s responsibilities to ensure that their participants act in this event responsible manner instead of just leaving things broken or in a mess for the people on duties or organisers to deal with.

How can we instil this spirit in people at EASA though? Can it be evoked or is it necessarily spontaneous? Should duties be abolished and people clean, fix, look after problem as they find/create them or would we be mature enough to rely on ourselves to do this. I know that I have walked passed many overflowing bins in my time and not emptied them, would this change if I knew where I should put them and where I could get a replacement bag? All I do know is that we as a group need to change our attitude, to accept more responsibility for ourselves our actions and the event. We need to use the EASA spirit that shared experience creates and make the event better with it.