Flashback - Conference Communities from People Soup 1979
by David WilliamsThese excerpts are from an article originally published in the 1979 issue of People Soup, which was the magazine of Liberal Religious Youth (LRY), the group which preceded Young Religious Unitarian Universalism (YRUU).
The sense of community I get at an LRY conference can be quite extraordinary. Other times it seems that I am being excluded from that very community. It all depends on two things: The way the conference is run, and the attitude that I, the LRYer, take with me.
A sense of community is important at a conference for several reasons. First of all, being quite practical, it helps the image of LRY in the eyes of both advisors and parents. I might be able to do something with a group of one hundred that I would not have been able to do with a group of five to ten people. After all, what is the real purpose of having a conference? It also helps you prepare for your life ahead, by allowing you to experience some of the responsibilities, experiences, and emotions you will encounter in later life.
If a conference is planned well, the sense of community within the group should naturally follow. The best example of a conference with a strong sense of community I have been to is the last Princeton, NJ conference in January 1979. It was a rather large conference, with over 160 attendees ranging from Northern Virginia to Boston. This large group of geographically "spaced out" people might seem to be a little bit alienating to the first-time conference go-er, and there were many in attendance there.
"Clans"* were one of the ways people got to know each other better. When each person registered, a different symbol was drawn on their hand: a tree, a rainbow, a sun, etc. We were not told what these symbols represented, but after orientation we were told to find the other people in the conference with the same symbol. This led to some yelling of things like "WATER!", "STAR!", and so on and so forth. The clans were born as each person found his or her group. Each group had at least one member of the Princeton local in it, to facilitate people getting to know each other. Some groups set up family structures and met fairly regularly; ours, due to general group apathy, only met again when it was our turn to cook.
Other ways a sense of community was instilled were quite common. One of these ways was the making of paper bag mailboxes, which helped in getting to know other peoples' personalities by the pictures on their mailboxes without ever having met them. In helping people get to know each other more rapidly, it turned a large group of people into a more close-knit community.
One of the most important ways of starting the foundation of a strong community at a conference is having a good orientation session. In the orientation at Princeton, all of the local members introduced themselves. This is a definite improvement over some conferences where I didn't know who was running them. To build a successful community, whether it be at an LRY conference or in the outside world, you need leaders, like it or not.
Not all conferences are like Princeton, though. I've been to two or three that have had little or no spirit of community at all. These are usually characterized by a lack of noticeable leaders, either a very broad theme (i.e. Living) or no theme at all, and very few workshops. Why conferences like this still exist and why people will put up with them is beyond my comprehension. I've twice left conferences like this mid-weekend. The emphasis in these conferences is usually placed on developing or expanding personal relationships. I, myself, have had nothing but bad experiences trying to start any meaningful relationships at conferences of this kind. On the other hand, a conference with a strong sense of community actually helps further personal relationships by establishing trust, by getting to know a wider variety of people, and by having a peer group to give you advice.
One thing that will definitely shape your view of conferences is the attitude you take even before you get there. I used to be one who thought of conferences as a place to escape to for a weekend with people I already knew. I rarely went to workshops, and I never participated in working or cleaning up. I also never had any fun. Then, one conference, I spent almost an entire afternoon washing dishes with Chris Jones. Not just some dishes. Dishes from lunch for 125 people. And I had a great time doing it. Why? Because I'd found the spirit of community in LRY. I noticed that I was no longer caring for just a select few, but that I was caring for everyone. If you focus on just a few people at an LRY conference, it can turn into being a downright negative experience. On the other hand, if you go to a conference with the express purpose of having a good time, participating in workshops, and doing your part in striving for a perfect community, personal relationships will naturally follow. The success of a conference lies not only within the conference planning committee but also within each individual LRYer. Maybe washing some dishes wouldn't be so awful now, would it?
*Editor's Note: What the author of this article refers to as "clans" are currently referred to, at most conferences today, as "touch groups" or "family groups."
Have you ever experienced a conference like the Princeton one? What are your district's or region's conferences like? How can you contribute to creating a healthy, empowering, and heart-warming conference community?
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Last updated on Friday, April 18, 2008.
