unMonastery - sharing my concerns about the project

nadia · January 10, 2014, 4:24pm

Bootstrapping, realistic expectations & building sustainability

Francesco hi,

I have tried to respond to your points below where I feel I have some input

At LOTE3 I realised there was a lot of problems related to the project and during the days I was there, I think we spent time talking about us, our dreams about the project, our expectations but not enough about how to solve those problems to make unMonastery a good project.

One of the key reasons as to why it is important to keep as much of the communication as possible in writing is to ensure important information, points easily missed etc are picked up and made visible on the platform. Did you raise these points in the unMonastery sessions and or include them/the ensuing discussion in the documentation on the platform?

Lack of a clear economic model

During my Italy tour before unMonastery, almost everyone I met asked me how this community-based project was going to run without money and I had no answer. I don’t believe in unMonastery if there is not a solid economic model.

OK, we have a bunch of people that are going to stay there for 4 months, but what’s going on after that?

.....

Why are you able to come to Matera for a month or more?

Are you unemployed, rich or simply a nomad worker?
I think these are very important questions and they are related to the very idea of the unMonastery.

unMonastery is building a space and a community of volunteers but it is located in a capitalism-based society.

How can we make this relation sustainable?

This is a very important point and it should be highlighted."

I think this is a valid point. As far as I am concerned it is up to the people who are selected for the residency program, to develop this with peers in the local community. Or for people in the local community to develop if they see a value in the initiative continuing. The unMonastery, as you know, is a prototype. Many hours of volunteer work have gone into making it at all possible for the residents to be there. So it is up to you to make the most of it. And contribute towards the opportunity being extended to others by putting some thought into sustainability now you know you will be there for the four months. As all prototypes, there is always a chance it will fail. If no economic model is devised by the end of the experience. At edgeryders we decided we believed in the community members who wanted to try to give it a go, and rallied to help them make it happen. Whatever happens from now on is up to you.

Less people (and energy) than expected

Am I right If I say the we expected a lot more people than actually came at LOTE3 ? If I take pasta party as an example, we were expecting more than 100 and I think we had 50/60.

Didn't you feel like something was missing, like if you expected a big thing and you just had a medium one?
Why do you think I felt like that?

Did anyone felt the same ?

No I have to say I was pleasantly surprised that there were so many people considering the location, work involved in participating and no budget to cover anyone’s time or expenses. Or even do PR for it.I was expecting much fewer, and less diversity amongst participants. We had budgeted 50-70 people.

Communication problems and transparency

Working often in volunteers-based projects, I tend to insist (here and here) about the big importance of clear informations about the management of money and the roles of everyone, which also includes knowing who is getting paid and who is volunteering. Today, it is still not clear to me how much money do we have to build the unMonastery and who is getting paid for that.

Your first comment about the budget was posted on August 14, and the Budget was posted on August 31 (as soon as it was made available by the local administration seed funding it). As far as I know the people who are being paid are clearly named in the document (coordinator is Ben). I do not understand what you mean Francesco, can you be more specific? This is important, so I would really like to understand what you are referring to.

This question is related the idea of open-bank management recently arised.

I had missed Elf's post, too much going on just before Christmas slump. I do not see any reason why this couldn't happen. It is up to the person proposing it to take responsibility for setting up the means to do so if they feel strongly enough about it. From the Page on Edgeryders Budget and Finances:

" We believe in using, and contributing to, open source software to be able to practice open accounting and management, while maintaining a professional, secure and robust management of the community's resources and relationships.

We are open therefore to discussing alternatives for these processes as long as the proposal maintains or improves all the service levels available with this configuration without increasing the amount of additional administrative work required.

If you have suggestions for how to do this, and are willing to help make it happen please email our CFO Arthur Doohan: arthur@edgeryders.eu "

Lack of real and strong connections with the local community

This is one of the main point of the project since the beginning : unMonastery is about working for a community and we can't do that if the local community is not there.

It was a serious problem to have only few people from Matera attending the Lote, tourism Office didn’t even know about the project, citizens I spoke with didn’t understand the project.

This is always going to be the case, new initiatives will always take time and effort to establish themselves. Or they will fail… I remember sitting through a presentation by a bunch of kids from Matera who very obviously put in a lot of effort to present themselves to the rest of the participants, in a foreign language they feel uncomfortable in. Not to mention all the volunteers in the Matera2019 community( Ida, Guiseppe etc) who put up a lot of effort to get others involved, offered free or heavily discounted accomodations to participants etc. As well as a bunch of people who dropped by out of curiousity, including some of the fusine squat next door. For me the event was a starting point of a real relationship which has continued.

This was never going to be a smooth ride. Ben, myself etc never promised it was going to be smooth and polished, actually it was clear this was going to be quite a challenge and at times very frustrating. On top of the grittyness of doing somethingnew add differences in language, culture, expectation etc. The big thing that has been achieved so far, is to be given an opportunity to try. It can still fail, but nothing new and interesting doesn’t involve risks. My two cents…