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Joining the Global Network of SoL Communities
While there are a number of groups around the world who identify themselves as SoL communities, there is great variety in their configuration, their level of development, and their capacity for implementing the kind of integrated action learning approach envisioned in SoL's purpose and principles. Now, SoL is a network of local communities linked mainly by informal, personal relationships We see SoL moving toward a global community, linked by a few core questions and a common idea of what it means to be a citizen of global SoL, operating democratically and non-hierarchically, with a robust capacity for collective learning and coordinated action.
Following the first SoL Global Forum in June 2003 a convening group volunteered to take responsibility for moving the global design process forward toward the implementation of a minimum global infrastructure that will help SoL members around the world:
- Accomplish meaningful initiatives together
- Share learning across a broad network
- Have connections and conversations around the world
- Invite in newcomers
- Organize and fund research projects, meetings, and other activities.
This team drafted a proposal for building a policy container to complement the set of human relationships that currently form the global SoL network. These policies are described in Current policies for forming local communities and using the SoL name.
Acting as an interim membership committee, the team has been in touch with the coordinators of all communities identifying themselves as being affiliated with SoL in an effort to determine which communities meet the proposed guidelines and therefore should be recognized as established SoL communities entitled to the use of the SoL name. "Recognized SoL Communities" are the communities who have been determined to meet the guidelines.
In collaboration with the recognized communities, the global design team is further charged with proposing a process that will enable the formation of a representative governing body, which can take up responsibility for global SoL policy and membership.
Contact Sherry Immediato at immediato at solonline.org for more information about establishing a local community.
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