Hello Friends,
We are expanding - but maybe not the way you think!
This is a note about what is underway and how things are evolving on the inside of Sol. The practical stuff is in this message, visit our blog for thought exploration on community & belonging.
Since 2005, our operations have been largely run by volunteer efforts - almost exclusively in fact. The generosity and communal spirit of Sol is integral to our everyday happenings and truly makes us tick!
The studio opened in January 2005 with 2 teachers (Dorcas & Jan) on the schedule and a ‘service crew’ of 3 ‘volunteers’ (Kristina, Kristen & Claire) and a box of index cards labeled with about 50 students names.
As of today, our service crew is 35+ strong. Thank you to: Pat, Nancy, Kathy, Thunderbird, Laura, Jen, Mikayla, Donna, Adrien, Stacie, Diana, Rachel, Clair, Cindy, Kelly, Kristen, Katherin, Nick, James, Kendall, Nyiah, Miles, Brigitte, Jevaun, Laura, Carla, Tanuja, with these people in que - Summer, Maryam, Bryan, Paloma, ivy, Suzie, Carrie, Lisa, Ava, Martin, David and others. This does not include all of our teachers, many who contribute so much more than just their teaching!
In the past month, we’ve been aiming to clarify and uplevel our Sol Service Crew - identifying who belongs and how can we meet the needs of the community with more connection & integrity.
Who belongs? Anyone can be on the crew. If someone wants to get involved, we’ll train you! Some people want to serve in a simply a volunteer capacity, some are part of the work-exchange and receive yoga or other benefits in exchange for the service. (In you are reading this and interested, just come in and ask how you can get involved.)
What does the Service Crew do? Pretty much everything in our community except ‘teach’ the classes and pay the bills. We have over 2,000 events per year and 4 properties to maintain - all serving hundreds of humans.
What are we adjusting? Mainly, we want to support MORE human power and less (machine) automation. (Crazy, i know). We want to share the effort better - smaller tasks for more people. We are also aiming for higher rates of mutual consistency, reliability and follow-thru - dependable ‘yes’s’ all around. And finally, up-level training - there is lots that goes into the community operations and for those that are interested in a deeper relationship, we’d love to share more complex tasks.
What we think you’ll notice:
More ‘service positions’ available. For each class or event on our schedule, in addition to the teacher or facilitator, there are now opportunities for up to 3 people to support the event. The ‘duties’ will vary per event but the ‘crew’ assigned will host the event - working together to open and prepare the space, connect and care for the humans and close up!
For example - Where we used to have 1:1 ratio - a teacher & helper, we would like to have up to 5 humans to support one event. For example:
Thursday 9:30am Slow Flow - Teacher: Kristina. | Mentee: Katherin | Crew 1: Pat | Crew 2: Laura | Crew 3: (open slot)
More Training: The other thing that is happening, but you may not notice on the outside, is the implimentaion of three or more phases of training for the ‘service crew.’ We’ll start simple with Phase 1, so anyone can join and add on as relationship deepens. Over time, we’d like all service crew members to run thru the current training… even if you have been around a long time! Everything is always evolving… it’s our own little continuing education units (CEU’s). If you are currently on the crew, please ask ‘when the next training is, or better yet, offer to lead one!
More faces, less screens: It’s so tempting to offer virtual meetings and trainings and put an ipad at the door when you enter to ‘check yourself in,’ but we are hoping to keep the face:face contact as long as we can. The overall aim is to INCREASE human contact and connection. Which means, we might be making old fashioned phone calls or saving text messages for when we are in person. We might even have a paper schedule IN STUDIO of the crew assignments for all to see. Heck, we might get a phone tree going :-).
Which means, this might be slower, messier and more prone to human error.
Please bear with us. Give us grace. We stand on the side of knowing one another for real.
Love,
Me, Dorcas, and We, the people at sol