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

Serendipity strikes again. Last night I got an e-mail from a friend of mine that asked me how I was coming along with putting together a neighborhood organization like that found in the Camden area of Salisbury. As it turned out, I wanted to update people on the progress anyway so she and everyone else will get the scoop here.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to note that at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 26th the Steering Committee of the Wicomico Neighborhood Congress will present the work done by its various subcommittees at the Greater Salisbury Committee Building in downtown Salisbury. I got that letter last week as one who volunteered for the Congress but not selected to the actual Steering Committee. Also, they're scheduling the first WNC Convention for September 25th.

My idea took root with the formation of the Wicomico Neighborhood Congress over the winter and my desire to have the neighborhood to which I'd just moved secure a place in the Congress. But I'm going to begin this narrative a decade or so back with a bit of personal history. Early on in my adult life, I started getting active in the political scene of my native Toledo and that extended naturally to an interest in things going on in my local neighborhood. It so happened that my area had an active Block Watch program that met monthly or so at a local church, so I started going to the meetings and eventually I became one of the officers. In addition to that, I helped organize block parties on my street two summers in a row. Those were a blast (boy I still miss them) and I got to know a good number of my neighbors that way.

It was the experience of Block Watch that made me want to do the same sort of thing here once I found a house to buy and learned the Congress was being formed. What I envisioned was not necessarily a Block Watch per se, but a group that advocated for improving the quality of life of our little corner of Wicomico County. So I began the whole process by doing a little online research into what my neighborhood was comprised of.

I found out that the area I live in is pretty well established, with most of the housing stock built in the 1940's and 1950's; and, unlike Salisbury proper, about 80% of the houses are owner-occupied. But more importantly, I got a feel of the neighborhood by actually walking through it on a regular basis. People here would likely not know me because of monoblogue, but if I said I was the guy who was out a good number of evenings a week walking up and down the streets, they may say "hey I know that guy."

So I got a feel of the neighborhood and found that the people were reasonably friendly. But how would that translate to the next step, which was getting interest in organizing a neighborhood group? This is what I decided to find out.

Many times a neighborhood becomes active in a group because of an outside factor. An increase of criminal activity is generally the motivator, but sometimes it's a new development coming to the area like a mall or a factory, or some other item that they see as a threat to their well-being and complacency. One disadvantage I saw here in my area is that there was no obvious motivating factor at work. That's a sort of double-edged sword when you try to get people to be active in the neighborhood.

My first step in the process was to figure out how many neighbors I had and how best to reach them. I decided to write a page-long flyer that spoke of the newly forming WNC and that I was interested in spearheading a group that I would represent there. In the flyer, I spoke of being proactive rather than reactive because, while there weren't any underlying issues people in our neighborhood have, we have an interest in it remaining that way. So, on a Friday in March I went and had about 130 flyers made and hand-distributed them at each house. Then I waited for the responses to roll in.

I got three.

And I know that a good number of my flyers were at least handled because I intentionally had them printed on bright blue paper and placed them at each door or fence gate before the mail arrived so people would notice them when they collected their mail. That Sunday I went out and saw only about a half-dozen still outside, so I was pretty sure that they were read.

I even alluded to this neighborhood group forming a week or two later when I appeared on the radio, but still no interest.

That was frustrating. So I spoke with the people who did contact me and told them that I was going to work on it a bit farther and to stay tuned. Unfortunately, I had a couple other things in my life that took precedence and I didn't get back to the idea until early May. At that point I decided to expand the area to about 300 homes total. As this group would be currently constituted, I encompass the area bounded by Parker Road on the west, the railroad track on the north, the Route 13 bypass on the east, and Merritt Mill Road on the south. This area is relatively homogenous as far as home ownership, home values, and is a fairly established neighborhood.

I got back to organizing on Memorial Day weekend with flyers in the rest of the neighborhood area, about 160 of them that it took me four hours on a hot day to distribute. Those results were, well, pitiful too. I got more hassle from the mailman than I got responses from people on that side of Old Ocean City Road.

(Now, I'm a veteran of many a political campaign so I thought I knew the rules about distribution of non-postal stuff. I was taught that you could not put unposted items in the mailbox, so I didn't. But apparently now you can't even tuck things in between the box and mailbox post or use the flag to secure nonpostal items. So in the future I'm just going to skip houses with "No Trespassing" signs, which were the situations I used the mailbox or a fence in because I respect private property rights.)

As things stand right now, I have a grand total of five responses. But I'm pressing on and decided to have our first impromptu meeting next week. That will be the subject of the latter half of this two-part series.