Community - what’s the secret sauce? (Part 1)
I grew up on a small housing estate in Kent. It had a primary school, village hall and paper shop, and was the perfect size for local kids to roam around after school. We’d skip our way from street to street, knocking on doors and hoping to catch our friends before dinner. ‘Can James come out to play?’
One summer, when I was 9 or 10, my pals and I formed a gang called the Animal Club. If you’d asked us, we would have told you our priority was to care for the local wildlife. This involved checking the pavements for slugs, snails and worms that were at risk of drying out in the sun or being stepped on, and dutifully moving them into the grass or shade. Anytime we found a worm looking a bit crispy, we would dip it into water until it appeared to be rehydrated. Our little jar of tap water was an essential tool on particularly hot days.
Sometimes, we’d arrive too late and there’d have been a fatality. Ants would be swarming to the scene of a dried up slug or squashed snail. I was always equal parts devastated and curious.
It wasn’t all rescue missions though - we also cared about their recreation and during lunch breaks on the school field, we would craft adventure parks, cities even, out of mounds of cut grass and sticks for local woodlice.
Ellie with her sister Emma and their guinea pigs, Ginger and Pickle
The Animal Club didn’t have a formally written list of values, but if I had to list them now, I’d suggest they would be:
Be caring
Be inquisitive
Be creative
Unfortunately we didn’t bake commitment into our values, so after a couple of summers, the local woodlouse population was left to make its own fun and worms everywhere had to fend for themselves.
Looking back through the lens of community, I can see that what united the Animal Club was our shared values. But to root something long-term, that’s not enough.
Seven principles for belonging
According to Charles H. Vogl, an expert in community building and social change, there are seven principles to consider to create a strong and resilient community. Last year, Together Culture undertook our first year of co-designing with Cambridge locals, and throughout, we held Charles’s seven principles in mind.
Boundaries. In my experience, this is the most controversial principle, because it sounds exclusive. But as Charles says, “if everyone in the world belongs in your community, this can mean your community cannot be distinguished from no community.” In practice, boundaries can often be recognised in communities through the process of self-selection. You don’t have to be invited to join, but you’re only likely to want to join if your values align with that community. This is why values are so important. Everyone could have been a member of Animal Club - but many people didn’t share our value that care = dipping worms into glasses of tepid tap water. Each to their own.
Other principles such as Initiation, Ritual, and Symbols are easily recognised in lots of strong communities. Were you a Scout or Girl Guide growing up? You’ll have undertaken the initiation ceremony, where you made your promise and received a scarf or badge, a symbol of belonging. You’ll likely have stood to attention while others made their promises too.
Temple and Stories. These two principles will likely bring to mind religious communities (Church and the Bible, Synagogue and the Tanakh, Mosque and the Qurʾān). Broader than that, a temple just means a place for the community to gather. For weight lifting groups, the gym becomes a temple. And for any community, the stories we tell each other about ourselves and our shared values is a way to strengthen our bond and feel seen.
Inner Rings is the seventh principle, and represents a path to mature within our community as we participate. Ideally, as we progress, our concern for ourselves diminishes and our concern and care for others within the community grows.
