You want to do more than sign up, you want to help make it happen. Great! If you can bring a positive spirit to the job, and offer needed skills and talent, click the Contact link.
Before discussing the details, let us emphasize the importance of a positive spirit. So far, everyone with the Village Forum gets along very well. It's important to us that we enjoy what we are doing, and not be subject to drama, agendas or politics. We appreciate our differences and how each of us thinks and sees reality differently, as long as we find we leave with as much energy as we brought in.
Village Coordinator: Perhaps the most important role is that of the Village Coordinator. This is a role, not a job. The Village Coordinator is the person or couple who sets out a theme for a particular village and then attracts the people who will join them in living there. Themes like:
"I want an Italian village with great food, music, lot's of laughter, local wine, the best coffee...",
"I want an inventor's village with brilliant ideas, ...and lots of entrepreneurs to make those ideas become real...",
"I want a big family village with lots of children, aunts, uncles, grandparents... even if we adopted the old folks who are far away from their own families. I want a great place to raise my kids."
If there are twenty villages in a VillageTown, then there are twenty village coordinators. This is not a job, but a role. It is primarily done for the love of it, although there may be some form of compensation for success.
Villagetown Circle: This is a local role, where a group of people come together, read the books, learn as much as they can, and announce they are forming a circle to call a VillageTown to their region. While the first VillageTowns need to pick locations with the most potential for success, the ultimate determinate is simple the answer to the question "will people move here?". A Circle calls attention. Depending on how good their idea, how attractive their locality, and how effective they are at networking, they may find the answer is "yes." The Circle is not a business, and probably involves no renumeration. It works with the Village Forum to establish a Village Organizing Company to turn the vision into reality.
Village Stewards: This is an international group of people who use their skills and networks to promote the idea of VillageTowns nationally and globally. They love the idea, they get it, they want to help make it happen. They put together the forum, they set up meetings, conferences and tours. They arrange publicity, make connections and do whatever they are good at to move the idea closer to being cast in concrete. They do it for the love of it, and the intention of living in such a place one day.
The Company: Yes, it really is called The Company Ltd., noting that company originally meant "group shares bread". The New Zealand Companies office at first refused to give out the name, but after we appealed, they looked at the law, conceded that there was no good reason to refuse, and we secured the name. This will be the company that establishes each project under the state law of its jurisdiction. Profits will be retained to build future VillageTowns and eventually to build networks between those VillageTowns to form economic, social and cultural exchange between them.
