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In January, 2007 five of us started meeting in my apartment to discuss and plan for some sort of community center. We each had our own ideas. By March we settled on the concept of one of us. Yet life and creation have their twist and turns. Now, in early 2009, the course is still unsure. [Edit 2010...this is no longer in process as far as I know. Still, worth reading on.
OUR Place still has great possibilities.
I found, thru the process of working with my friend in 2007 -- and thru knowing myself, my eyes are bigger than my stomach. What I mean is that often my BIG PICTURE ideas are more than I feel able to manifest. Or, being more kind to myself, they are ahead of their time. Perhaps, the work I do is a form of seeding. Keeping this section on the website is a way to put it out to the Universe. May it be an attractor field to manifest others so that OUR Place comes to be in some form of another. Hopefully, I will get to play a part in the creation.
The Third Place -- Its Importance
The Third Place's of today and the future can play an important part to help us feel connected and to help us find ways to co-create socially, spiritually, politically and as economic units. And with the world in the shape it's in, we need Third Places to come together even more. If you are not familiar with the Third Place term, "Home" is the first place, "Work" the second and then there are Third Places -- places people gather.
Ray Oldenburg wrote The Great Good Place in 1989. Here is a quote from the site:
"Ray Oldenburg is an urban sociologist from Florida who writes about the importance of informal public gathering places. In his book The Great Good Place, Oldenburg demonstrates why these gathering places are essential to community and public life. He argues that bars, coffee shops, general stores, and other "third places" (in contrast to the first and second places of home and work), are central to local democracy and community vitality. By exploring how these places work and what roles they serve, Oldenburg offers placemaking tools and insight for individuals and communities everywhere." Learn more at:http://www.pps.org/info/placemakingtools/placemakers/roldenburg.
Until recently, I saw the coffee shop as the predominant model for a place to go and hang out alone or with friends, to hold informal business meetings, even meet blind dates. Starbucks has been the major player. As many of you know, Starbucks is struggling now -- profits are down and the stock's value is way down. Some of you know that I worked at Starbucks, at the counter. They call it being a barista. I joined the company in December of 2005 because of my belief in the power of Third Place. I made serveral attempt to "speak" to managment -- while I did not foresee the huge hoursing/financial market crisis, it was easy to predict that the success of their brand would attract a lot of competion and they needed to prepare for this. In October of 2008 they closed my store. By that time I'd moved form the Boston area and was returning to visit and work a few hours a month. Because of the customers and the Partners, I loved working at Starbucks. Since I now live more than 20 miles from the closest store and given the current working climate, I happy that sojurn has ended.
In my corporate days I consulted coffee companies. Helping Starbucks be a better company would have had great impact. Yet, I was not meant to be.
How could Starbucks improve? Many of the elements of Third Place that Oldenburg speaks about are not happening and Starbucks is not maximizing its Third Place potentiality. One thing that is missing, in my opinion, is that people do not intermingle to meet new people and make new contacts. In very few stores are there means to create more community within a particular outlet.
Being connected and feeling community is a huge social need now. Have you heard about this or read about it? If your have read this far, something must be guiding you...so keep going!
OUR PLACE
I envisioned OUR Place as a community center that lives Universal Spiritual Values, promotes Global Community and local community. The drop-in Third Place is the essential ingredient. My dream and intention to create a "chain" of these community centers has shifted.
Yet my original vision is well worth your time to explore. See below.
Ani
OUR Place or OneWorld Community Centers
Third Places to Gather -- hosted in coffee/tea houses
Education, Entertainment & Recreation Centers
Environmental Centers that are Examples What is Possible
Adopt a Community Partnerships
Vocational & Global Action Networks
Vision
The inspiration for OUR Place is to design community centers that
- Facilitate OUR personal, community and planetary evolution through loving, caring local gathering places
- Facilitate our spiritual being
- Create a means for us to build OUR networks
- Act as a meeting place for many organizations
- Act as examples of the best green and sustainability business practices living lightly on the planet
- Use spiritual, higher consciousness principles to “succeed” in the market place
- Use commercial viability to source outreach services
- Participate in Global Change through our local community
OUR Place Mission
In order to help us grow our spiritual selves and communities, to help save our planet’s ecological system, foster sustainability, progressive social, political goals and universal spiritual values, the mission of OUR Place is to create integrative structures and services that grow OUR individual and collective spiritual and economic power.
By creating a chain of socially responsible Third Places, be they coffee houses, tea houses or some other form of easy access gathering place, within higher consciousness educational centers we gather like-minded neighbors and grow our spiritual community, helping us as individuals and within our communities and beyond.
We contribute to a better world by moving consumer dollars and entertainment/ educational time to this higher consciousness model. Financial viability helps create right livelihood for those involved. Profits are invested in outreach work.
OUR Place is designed to be a new model for Community Centers focused on evolutionary offerings and built around the accessibility of the Third Place model. Spiritual, educational, entertainment and recreational offering will help us all evolve at our own pace. Of course, all the offerings, services and products available at OUR Place will meet standards that align with our principles.
OUR Place will provide a loving and empowering place for like-minded people to gather and create ways and means to support, cooperate and collaborate with each other.
Thru coming together informally, OUR Place will grow our spirituality, our networks, alliances and create infrastructures that nurture us personally and in community. Cooperation in our vocations can help us reach our potential and make more of an impact. Together we hospice the old paradigm and midwife the new.
OUR Place is based on the principles that:
- We are the people we have been waiting for creating the change we wish to see in the world.
- There are many paths.
- Many hands make light work.
- “The urge to progress is innate in all societies and culture, both individually and collectively.” 1
OUR Place, the Business, is designed to utilize the principles of sustainability, vocational enhancement and building cooperative ventures.
OUR Place is in the concept development stage. Your interest and energy helps create the attractor field that gathers the talents and people to create OUR Place.
Step forward as you are called. There is no obligation. If you are inclined, please pass this concept on to others who may wish to participate!
If you desire more detailed information about the evolving OUR Place concept, go to OUR Place -- In Detail.
Ani Colt
AniColt.com
1 David Hakins, Ph.D. The I of the Eye
2 Mahatma Ghandi Create and “Be the change we wish to see in the world”2
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