Joining community groups can be a strange experience. It’s a shifting population to begin with, with an unpredictable mix of people attending from one meeting to the next. They often have very different ideas about what the group is about and these seem to change with time and what sort of mood folk are in at the time.
A lot of groups tend to be fragile, especially evening or day classes, where the existence of these depends on numbers attending. I attended one of these which only met for one session and we never actually did any writing because we didn’t have the required six people; a case of hail and farewell after a short forlorn wait for more bodies.
Systems Theory says that people are usually part of a lot of different groups. It looked complicated on a flip chart page. The reality is totally bewildering. Groups appear overnight like fungi, sometimes get consumed, often simply disappear without a trace. Some leave toxins in their wake, like the Death’s Cap fungi, but the less said about those the better.
Having groups within groups makes life interesting, since there tends to be a group of autonomous movers and shakers, a self appointed shifting population, holding covert meetings according to anarchist principles. At least, they would be if they were trained as such, but they resist being told anything.
There used to be a notice in some clubs asking whether you know the Tates.⁹
Dominate controls everything.
Agi Tate stirs things up.
Hesi Tate can never make up his mind.
Vegi tate cannot adide change, while Procrastin Tate is notoriously dilatory.
You get the general idea.
Everyone is queer as they say in Yorkkshire, and thou’s a bit odd an’ all. Especially if you happen to be part of a committee.