Craft Circle: Community Culture and Accountability
Nnaemeka | 00:01 Hello and welcome back. For this part of the tutorial, I just wanna walk us through how to think about what it means to build community and create and establish a culture of safety and comfort for the participants of your craft making circle. But also in addition to that, creating an accountability structure that can help you meet the goals and the aims of, and the intentions that you all set as a group. So just to start with setting an intention, and building trust. I really do believe that in order for a group to be successful in its aims, that there has to be some kind of shared consensus around what are our goals of coming together, what are our values and how do we express our values and how we communicate and commune with one another? And so I recommend, as you all are forming your, your craft making circle, perhaps this started through one person who had the idea to bring people together so that individual person might already have their intentions that they have for the group or their vision for how they group the think, believe the group should operate and function, the values that they want the group to espouse.
01:09 But I do think that it's important that as you're building a community that people are mutually invested, that every participant has a role to play, has space to contribute what they want and what they need in order for the group to feel safe and comfortable and productive for them. So I would really advise, it's okay to come in with your own intentions as an individual, but maybe to then set some time apart to ideate with the entire group about what it means to come together in this way. What are some of the shared values that you all have? What are some of the goals that you all might have? Recognizing that those goals and values and intentions might change over time, which is totally fine. And maybe it might be helpful to build into your convening every few months or every few weeks, an opportunity to just check in and return back to this conversation of how are we doing our intentions?
02:03 Do we want to grow? What are our intentions? Do we want to grow the capacity of what we're doing? So these can always be revisited. Nothing is set in stone. I think part of what helps to establish is trust and keep people grounded in the intentions of the group, is being intentional about the name of the group that you choose to use to call yourselves. And so it's a fun part. It can be very lighthearted. It doesn't have to be something serious, but something that allows you all to have a shared identity that lets you feel kind of like, it's like a team. You're building a team and giving your team a name so that people feel a part of this collective thing that you all share. Another way that I think building trust and maintaining the intentions is just having an established list of norms and values that you all follow and adhere to as a group. This one's particularly important because even if you are building a group of people that you are familiar with, there might be
02:58 Times where there's certain, certain craft making circles that there are individuals who you're less familiar with or don't know as well as your friends or peers or loved ones. And so I think it's important, even when you're working with your friends and peers and loved ones, it's different to be working with them in a collaborative way versus, um, having a friendship or relationship with them that doesn't require you all to build things together. And so I share that to say that it's helpful to have a set of community values, community norms, community intentions that are written out, almost kind of like your group bylaws, although they don't have to be so formal. They're a little bit more of like tacit agreements, like silent agreements that you all have outlined and named, and then just kind of hover over the group as you all meet.
03:46 And it's helpful to have them written down so that if things do arise where someone is transgressing against the norm, whether consciously or not, that you have a reference document that you can draw on to encourage the group to continue to adhere to the norms that you all have set. And so some of the norms could be, you know, when we're together, try to be fully present. Try not to be on your phone, to really leave the worries that you're bringing into this space behind, unless we've set an intention to have this be a space where you can bring your worries with you into the work that we're doing. And so, I just think that community norms can be a really helpful way to establish the culture, which you all are doing, so that you all have clear understanding of how to relate with one another and that's agreed upon and that everyone has contributed to as well too.
04:34 The last thing I would say around setting intentions and building trust is also just thinking about how do we start our meetings? Maybe each meeting can start with a new front prompt that someone, one participant from the group is responsible for coordinating and facilitating each week. One person can be responsible for bringing snacks each week, or you can have a shared system of how you want to collaborate and coordinate around snacks. But I think starting from a place of levity, or there might be something going on in the world that day and it might be helpful to just leave space to check in about that thing. But I think starting, each gathering with some type of grounding, it could be a meditation, it can be reflection questions, it can be journal prompts. It can be talk and turn where you turn to one person in the group.
05:20 It can be an open group share. And it can be as light as like, what's your favorite color or what's your favorite childhood memory? Or it could be an activity or an exercise that you do together that just allows you all to get to shake off what you're bringing in from the outside world and then get grounded in what you all are doing in the space together. So those are just some of my suggestions on how to set intentions and build a community of trust amongst the people in the folks who are in your craft making circle. Again, it's really important to recognize that these things will change. So you don't have to do the same prompt every week. You don't have to, as you check in about the norms over time, maybe you start with one set of norms and in six months you realize, oh, we need another norm for this thing that has come up that we didn't anticipate.
06:05 It's okay to pivot as long as you all make room and make time to come back to each other and have a check in on how we're doing. And so it might be worthwhile to have that as part of your craft making agreement that every two months we do a group check in about how things are going, what we're enjoying about the experience, what could be different about the experience. But I think in doing that, you're able to build trust and set intentions for a group that is successful for whatever the goals you set for the group bar. The second part of this, this part of the tutorial is thinking about accountability. There's a professor of mine, Sarah Lawrence Lifewood, who wrote a book, with another scholar named Jessica Hoffman Davis, and it's called The Art and Science of Portraiture. And they talk about the portraiture as it's a research method where you are in relationship with the people that you are studying, and sometimes these people are your friends or become your friends.
07:00 And so in the process of still maintaining your position as the researcher, that you need to have some kind of accountability structures that allow the work to still get done, even though a friendly rapport is being developed. So how this relates to the work that we're doing with craft making circles is that sometimes you might be creating a craft making circle with people who you're deeply familiar with, family or friends or other loved ones that you think you know very well or pretty well. And as someone who is collaborated with a lot of my friends and loved ones, it can sometimes be really difficult to get the work done because we end up sliding into friendship time or friendship zone when we really have a goal that we're trying to meet, or a deadline that we're trying to meet. And so, hey talk about in the book, in the workbook, the art and science of portraiture that when, when engaging in this process of building relationship with people that you know, or care about or want to become friends with and actually, but have to have also some element of a professional relationship with a productive kind of relationship with, in that way that it helps to have rigorous structures and rigorous processes so that you can rely on these things to rely on those structures and processes to hold you all accountable to getting the work done.
08:10 So similar to like having the community norms or the community values that you all set is just kind of creating a structure to your relationship that is still flexible enough to maintain the levity and the lightheartedness of it, but also still adds a level of structure that allows you to get the things that you say you want to get done, done. And so, I think some of the things to think about with accountability is just, I think first and foremost, which is really big, is making sure that there's mutual investment and reciprocity. And what I mean by that is that, for example, I might have an idea to start a craft making circle based on people who weave and want to think through grief, right? And even though I want to invite other people into that mix, and people say they want to join or they're interested, that sometimes people may not be as other participants may not be as totally invested in the idea as me because I'm the person who came up with the idea and proposed the idea to the group.
09:04 And sometimes people feel like, well, you proposed it, so maybe you lead it or you take, ownership over it. But I think that that puts a lot of pressure on one individual to make sure that the group succeeds. And if you wanna really have a democratic approach to how you all structure your craft making circle, I think it's really important to get buy-in from everyone who's involved. And so just making sure that everyone's equally invested and interested in what you all are doing. So that innate purpose is always there and they have an innate, and inherent desire to wanna show up and be a part of the group. And part of that is just, for example, mutual investment can look like making sure that you don't miss too many meetings, that life comes up, things go on, and that requires to pivot and change our plans.
09:49 But just to make sure that you are finding a way to still be involved in what you all are doing, not missing too many of your craft making meetings because, and missing so many, you know, you're missing out on opportunities to build relationships with folks who are participating in it and, and deepening their relationship over time. If you all are working on a specific project or a deadline that you, a commission piece together that you are then not able to fulfill your commitments or honor the parts of the project that you're responsible for. And so just making sure that there's mutual investment, that people agree to participate, with the same level of care and intention as everyone else in the group. I think another important thing with accountability is having some type of structure around how you all communicate with each other, how you all express desires and needs and interests.
10:37 How you all offer feedback in a way that doesn't disempower someone who you're offering feedback to or the group as a whole, but actually opens up room for more. And so there's so many different styles of communication, so many different ways of doing it. Sometimes I've recognized that, for example, in moments of conflict, that it can be helpful to, instead of speaking things out at each other, writing and exchanging notes and letters to one another, in different rooms or in different spaces, what it does is in doing that, you're putting distance between the person that you, you're offering feedback to and their reaction. So it gives them an opportunity to sit with what you've shared, react on their own, and then hopefully come together and be like, okay, I was in a reactionary moment, but now I want to respond more appropriately. These are the things that I think are actually worth saying versus what's not saying. And so I think just having your own way as a group of thinking about how do we want to communicate with each other? How do we want to work through conflict when it arises? I think the thing about conflict is sometimes people shut down when conflict happens in the space, not recognizing that conflict is actually a really important part of any collaborative process, any community process. And so I suggest and recommend
11:52 to accept conflict and its resolution as a catalyst for necessary learning. That's actually, that exact statement is a community norm that I used to use when I was working that, my colleagues and I used when we were working for the National Association of Independent Schools and developing curriculum materials for this student diversity leadership workshop. And so just thinking about conflict doesn't always have to be bad, especially when there's resolution attached to it as well too. And then just figuring out a way to move with fairness and to meet people where they are. And so I think that that is, that is the ingredient I think that would help and lead for a successful craft making circles. So setting intentions and creating a culture of safety and comfort and vulnerability and enthusiasm. And then also creating an accountability structure that allows you to meet the aims and goals of what you all have intended to do. Thank you. [End of transcript]
Depending on the intentions/goals behind your craftmaking circle, your group will need to develop a community culture, over time, that feels safe/inviting/productive. You can name your group, and with the name project and affirm the spirit of the group. Building trust is an essential component of a long-lasting/successful collaboration.
Developing community norms together is essential to building trust. It gives the group a shared agreement -even tacit agreements- that can easily be referenced whenever issues and/or conflicts arise. By clarifying what the members of the group perceive as a tacit agreement, people can easily articulate what they observe to be the culture of the group and how it has been functioning.
How do we build trust? How do we assess trust in the group? Using prompts at the beginning of each session to build and assess the evolution of trust. It will be incumbent upon the person who initiates and/or leads the circle to modeling vulnerability for the group. This might be a good place to talk about the value of in-person gathering, critical play/experimentation, and hanging out outside of the craftmaking circle.
Begin discussion on accountability. You can use Sara Lawrence Lightfoot’s quote about the importance of creating rigorous structures when working with friends/loved ones. –> “When portraiture becomes a collaborative (rather than an individual endeavor–when researchers use a group voice–different challenges and opportunities arise that require the development of rigorous structures and unison processes.” – The Art & Science of Portraiture
Fostering reciprocity -via accountability- should lead to creating a democratic structure that empowers everyone to become mutually invested in showing up as a major and/or minor key leader of the group.
Creating a communication structure that empowers the group to honor the need to pivot toward a new set of goals/intentions as the needs/wants of the group evolve.
Conflict is not a sign of failure, even if previous frictions make one fear failure. Analyzing the source of the conflict and creating space to listen to the parts will strengthen a group. Letting conflict turn into chaos and discomfort, by not addressing it when it is still manageable, can weaken and eventually break the structure of the group. Your craft-making group can become a network, lifelong friends, colleagues, and business partners, if you allow these types of relationships to flourish.
SCALING UP/CLOSING: This section discusses how to scale the growth and impact of your craftmaking circle to align with the evolving needs of the collective (i.e. identifying resources/needs, fundraising/development, supporting an individual participant’s goals/needs, acting upon a collective goal/need, etc.). This section will also address the importance of creating and enacting rituals to properly/respectfully end a craftmaking circle with care, especially if/when the circle is no longer serving the needs and goals of the collective.