The pitfalls of organization (conclusion of a two-part series)

Last week I posted about how I'd gotten to the point I arrived at tonight, the first meeting of my still-unnamed neighborhood organization. Tonight was the big night, and I was looking forward to seeing how many of my neighbors would heed the call. I anticipated three, maybe four. And I got one.

I suppose I shouldn't be too disappointed; after all, I've always found that people make and break commitments quite easily when life gets in the way. But I have to hand it to the one lady who came, she put off attending a 40th birthday party just to see what this was about - and I certainly thank her for that!

So instead of a formal meeting, it was more of an impromptu discussion. I introduced myself, gave her a bit of background on why I decided to do this, and we discussed some of the issues that we share insofar as problems in the neighborhood. We actually agreed on three of them: the possible influx of rentals, street lighting, and crime. She also had concerns about cars speeding down her street and making the area more bicycle-friendly as she and her husband are fairly avid riders (the bike rack on her car let me know too.) For my end, I'd like to see a small playground placed on one of the "paper streets" in our neighborhood, but the two aren't dissimilar aims.

So where do I go from here? Well, I ain't giving up. There were two other people who I know were interested but were away this week, and I like to think that I've doubled the number of concerned people tonight since I met someone else who's equally troubled about potential problems in the area. In about 45 days I'll try, try again. (It'll likely be quarterly once we get established though.) One goal I do have is to find an actual quasi-public meeting place rather than my house. I'll also see about a bit more advertising. But even if a few people bring a neighbor, that begins to grow the group. If my two or three no-shows come next time, I've doubled the group. If they each bring a neighbor the next time, we're getting into double digits.

Something else I need to check into is whether there's an active Block Watch-style group in the neighborhood. I see a few signs about that allude to neighbors watching neighbors but I don't think we're organized in that way. I guess this will give me something else to do, unless one of readers knows how to find out. They can get back to me since my e-mail's here for all to see.

I suppose this would qualify more as a whimper than a bang, but every organization starts someplace. As I noted, tonight I doubled the number of people who want to get involved in this locally and we have nowhere to go but up.