Start a team
We invite you to develop groups of the Community in your hometown, university, workplace, etc.
1. How does a team start to be built?
When a group of people meet periodically around The Community's materials with the aim of organizing training activities and the practice of nonviolence, creating a void to violence, denouncing and not collaborating with it, when it sets in motion non-violent exemplary actions, and when also the participants of that group are concerned with overcoming their own internal violence, then we are in the presence of a primary base organization that we call a "TC promotion group". The personal relations and behavior of the group are based on the Golden Rule: "Treat others as you would like to be treated".
There are also TC groups that develop their activities in a virtual way by making use of new technologies through the web and internet.
2. How does one participate?
Participation is open to anyone, without discrimination. Any person who coincides with the basic objectives of The Community can be integrated into the organization, joining as a full member or as a supporter and thus collaborate with planned activities, participate in meetings of formation and capacity-building, and initiate new actions.
Full members : participate in meetings, contribute an annual membership fee, take responsibility for growth and are trained on the basis of the personal works that The Community promote. They are responsible for choosing, through a direct vote, the delegates of their team for the Coordination Teams, and the members of the National and World Coordination Teams. They also instigate the development and formation of new Base Teams without geographical limitations.
Supporting members : receive information, participate in activities and collaborate with development.
Without loosing their own identity, any action front, group, organization or collective may solicit inclusion as a "supporter" in The Community by expressing their endorsement of the principles on which The Community is inspired and maintaining a relationship of mutual collaboration with it.
Ultimately, and in the case of full members or base teams who encourage proposals, actions or procedures that are clearly opposed to the objectives of the organism, The Community may remove recognition as members of TC from those members or base teams.
3. Which are the basic functions within the group / team?
From their formation, base teams or groups of TC advance in setting up three basic mechanisms or functions for their development:
- growth : orientating their action towards other people, towards other networks and organizations with the aim of making their proposals and tools known and implementing them in practice.
- communication : maintaining fluid communication and interchange with other base teams and with other organizations with objectives in affinity with TC.
- formation : attending to the progressive formation of their members, offering tools for overcoming internal and external violence. These studies and practices are developed in the primary materials.
When these " TC promotion groups " reach a minimum development (approximately 10 full members), achieve permanence in their meetings and choose one of their members, through a direct vote, to fulfill the functions of team coordination and contact person with the "National or World Coordination Team", a "TC Base Team " is constituted. (E.g. TC Base Team "Flowers neighborhood", TCBT "Active Nonviolence Mumbai", etc).
These teams of TC may generate links with other groups and organizations in their environment (interchange, joint actions and collaboration), but on no account will they establish an organizational relationship with any of them.
TC Base Teams, like National and World Coordination Teams may, when they consider it necessary , define functions that facilitate joint action, such as:
- Spokesperson: responsible for presenting The Community in institutional activities, in the press and in all activities or situations where it is necessary to present The Community's point of view.
- Relations with other organizations
- Participation of minorities
- Legal and juridical
- Press and dissemination
- Other ad-hoc functions
These functions are elected through a direct vote by members of the respective teams (base, national and international coordination) and they have a 1 year term of office in the case of base teams and two years in the cases of national and world coordination. These functions are exclusively for relating to the environment and are at the service of the whole. They are not for orientation and respond to a mandate with precise guidelines and may be re-elected.
4. Which are the reference materials?
Official materials:
- The Book of the Community (Ed. 2009, updated).
- Manual of Personal Development for members of the Humanist Movement. Center of Studies, Punta de Vacas Park, 2009.
- The Humanist Document , Silo (1992).
Recommended materials:
- Self-liberation , Luis A. Ammann. (Ed. 1980, updated in 2004.)
- Completed Works, Silo, Vol. I and II .
There are also numerous contributions that members of The Community have made in the development of points of view and in application to specific fields; these contributions amplify the recommended bibliography.
5. How is the economic side managed?
The Community sustains itself financially through the voluntary contributions of its members. Membership fees are gathered annually from all full members around the world to sustain joint activities. The amount of the fee is defined by the "National Coordination Teams" and related to a percentage of the average national salary of their particular country.
The money collected is proportionally distributed between the base teams, the national coordination teams and the world coordination team according to the proportion defined by the World Promotion Team.
Occasionally funds may be gathered based on needs that may arise in which full members and supporters of the organism may participate in a voluntary manner. The amounts of these occasional campaigns may never exceed the amount of the annual membership fee.
In coherence with an organization with a human base, the funds to sustain it come from its members.
6. Institutional aspects
According to the degree of development and growth of TC in every country, and with the aim of facilitating the development of the objectives in relationship with its environment, TC teams tend to be legalized as "non-profit-making civil associations" (or however this may be called in different countries) .
The statues and articles of association of these "non-profit-making civil associations" will reflect in practice an organization, objectives and principles identical to those proposed in the official organizational materials of The Community at a worldwide level.
Internationally, The Community is organized as an "International Federation" which gathers together all TC teams around the world.
7. Connettive