A special welcome

We're having a kindof community experience that I've never had before.
You know that time when you're sitting in a crowd of people you don't know and no one talks to you...? Or the time when you're hosted by people you know are super busy and tired and so you don't want to trouble them? Well, this is not one of those experiences!

This week we've been welcomed like I've never been welcomed before! The resident to guest ratio has been 100:1 (seriously!!) and most of those residents are keen to introduce themselves and swap stories and hear about our interest and experience of community. That means we've needed to manage our people time as we've been getting breakfast, lunch and dinner dates! We've certainly learned a lot about how this place runs and its on a scale I've never seen before. The whole movement has been running for more than 90 years, started in Germany and there are now more than 2500 people in 28 locations. The community we're in is one of 14 large communities (more than 150 people).

I'm hoping I'll have time to write a few posts about the place. I've only been here for less than a week so obviously I don't have the full picture but what I have seen is quite the story! There's a lot more to it that I can tell, all the ups and down of community relationships can't be picked up in a week or blogged in a few posts, so, just assume there's as many hard times as the amazing positive stories I'll tell here.