This is a CTP of initiative: Shareable‐ ShareBloomington (USA)
This CTP (CTP1) consist of the formation of Shareable in Bloomington. In June 2015 his professor of Anthropology had asked Ryan if he would help to throw a festival of sharing culture and sharing economy in Bloomington. Ryan, who was following Shareable online through the Shareable website and social media for a couple of years, knew that shareable had promoted ShareFest in other cities through the world, which are similar to what his professor wanted. Together with his Professor he decided to throw a ShareFest. ShareFests are participatory events designed to connect the local people and make them familiar with the concept of the sharing economy (for more information see: http://www.shareable.net/sharefest). This was a way to kickstart the sharing economy in Bloomington.
The ShareFest took place in a public area in Bloomington where over 100 local people from diverse backgrounds could meet and get familiar with the concept of sharing economy. The program was prepared and moderated by Ryan and one group of Friends who he met during the Occupy movement in 2011. Before the formation of ShareBloomington Ryan himself and his friends were very interested and engaged in small events such as ‘free markets, free sales, and free friendly food that mainly took place in public parks. Thus, when his professor asked Ryan if he could help with the event, he was immediately interested. This was a critical turning point because ShareFest was the start of the formation of ShareBloomington. As Ryan states:
“Share Fest itself was a critical turning-point, because it got more people to notice what we were doing and got a bigger public interested in the projects. And that also forced us to develop them (the projects) a little bit more, like organize some of the tools and create a logo and those kinds of things.”
As Ryan had just started working at the Centre for Sustainable Living in Bloomington, he managed to get sponsorship from them in order to organize the event. The Centre for Sustainable Living is a local non-profit organization that functions as an umbrella-organization. They provide fiscal sponsorship to community-based programs that are not yet incorporated. After the ShareFest, they institutionalized as a part of the Centre of Sustainable Living. Thus, Share Bloomington is technically the same thing as the Centre for Sustainable Living, but internally they are separated. All the projects have autonomy in terms of self-organization and develop their own rules and structures.
Currently there are about 15 people that have been engaged in making different projects work in Bloomington.
Website Centre for Sustainable living:
This Critical Turning Point is co-produced in two aspects.
Firstly, the CTP was co-produced by Ryan’s Professor of Bloomington University, who invited Ryan to organize an event of sharing culture and sharing economy in Bloomington. That made Ryan think of how a ShareFest in organized, what goes into a ShareFest, and what products in town are related to sharing. The professor also helped Ryan with the financial aspects. He provided Ryan with several thousand dollars form the university budget, (did not say how many exactly) to organize the event more extensive in order to attract a bigger audience. As Ryan describes: “I am used to organizing events and projects with no budget, and no time. But with this, I got like you know four months and several thousand dollars, so we bought large food crates, save barrels and we put on several workshops”.
The second aspect that co-produced the formation of Shareable in Bloomington is the Occupy movement. This movement is mentioned as co-production because of the following reason: During the occupy movement in 2011, Ryan had met several people who protested against social and economic inequality around the world with the primary goal to make the economic and political relations in the society less vertically hierarchical. When his professor asked Ryan to organize an event that was related to a different kind of economy than the current one, he relied on a group friend who he met during the occupy movement to help and volunteer during the one-week event (ShareFest).
At this moment, the majority of the people who are active at ShareBloomington and keep organizing projects are the activist that Ryan had met during the Occupy movement in 2011. Ryan describes it as follows:
“I think that a lot of the projects that are occurring now, especially the projects of Share Bloomington have a deeper legacy, like Bloomington's iteration of the Occupy Movement. Because all of us met in the park. And all these things that are happening now, are just longer term consequences of those relationships that we formed in that general experiment in different ways relating to different people that are different from each-other. So, I think that is a longer term historical consequence.”
In Short, ShareBloomington might not have been formed without the invitation of Ryan’s professor to throw a ShareFest, and without the help of his group of friends who also wanted to contribute to the creation of a more social economy by forming ShareBloomington.
Additionally Ryan involved people active in another project of the Centre for Sustainable Living called ‘Open Streets’, which was about promoting the use of streets for more than just cars (see contestation).
Occupy movement. As mentioned before, Ryan and his group of friends, many of whom he met through the occupy movement, were very much involved in small events that promoted free markets before the formation of ShareBloomington. There was also a desire to have a seed library or a tool library.
The first related event is the formation and activity of the occupy movement in 2011.
Unexpected death of Ryan's friend. In December 2014 one of the closest friends of Ryan (Glenn Carter), who was part of the circle of friends from occupy movement died. At the time, his doctor had changed his medication which messed up with his brain a lot. According to Ryan he stopped talking to everyone for a couple of months and then he killed himself. His friend was a metal worker and a local sculptor. When he died, his parents left Ryan and the others a garage full of tools on the condition that they would turn it into a community resource.
A couple of weeks later, after the professor of Ryan had asked him to throw a event of sharing culture, one of his friends came up with the idea to make the tools of their friend who died the sharing tools of the event (ShareFest). Ryan was very enthusiastic about this idea, especially because the parents of his friend had asked them to make the tools a community resource. As he states: “I was struggling to think of what to include (during the ShareFest). And then several weeks later, my friend dies, where all of a sudden we had like thousands of tools that we did not know what they were and we had to turn them into some kind of community resource.”
So the interest of Ryan and his friends in a sharing economy, the unexpected death of their friend, and his professor asking him to throw a ShareFest were all related events that helped to organize the ShareFest successfully, that eventually resulted in the formation of ShareBloomington. Ryan states it as follows: “That was interesting because like, you know, a few of us had just started to talk seriously about a seed library, you know, our friend had just passed and we just have been left all his tools. And around the same time this professor had asked me if I would help to throw a festival of sharing culture. And so having all these things kind of floating around, it made sense to find some way of knitting them together.”
After the CTP happened (ShareFest) many other events followed that were crucial for the existence of ShareBloomington. This includes the formalization of ShareBloomington, fiscal sponsorship by Centre for Sustainable living, and a tool library.
This CTP involves contestation with the government of Bloomington;
When the city of Bloomington had found out that Ryan and others were having a ShareFest, they were called by the city government and asked many questions about the event. According to Ryan they were very frustrated because the event was going to be organized on city property without telling the government about it. According to Ryan, Bloomington is a very conservative city and is not always open to new ideas and concepts. Ryan decided to plan a meeting with the government to tell them about ShareFest. According to Ryan they felt more relieved after the conversation and calmed down when Ryan told them that they could be included in organizing the event as well. However, they did not want to help with the organization of the event. Ryan mentions the exact struggles as follows: “they did not want to help us block off any space for parking, they did not want to help us block off for..., like we were going to have a little parade, going down this large public walkway, but the public walkway is city property and they did not want to let us use it for that and so they did throw up some barriers and challenges”.
Ryan and his colleagues had to reconfigure how they were going to approach the use of space. This forced them to partner with another projects of the Centre for Sustainable Living called ‘Open Streets’, which was about promoting the use of streets for more than just cars around the same time as ShareFest. “Because in America, like we are very car-centric and streets are not very save or friendly for pedestrians or cyclists. But Open Streets tries to take a day and block off these streets and people come and play games in the streets and just walk around and have food and just see their neighbourhood and their city from a different perspective. Namely from a street they usually would not feel safe walking or biking on.”
(See more about this event on: https://www.simplycsl.org/)
According to Ryan, the fact that this event would happen at the same time was a very coincidental and good opportunity for ShareBloomington. They ended up working together, so that Shareable would have there event at the same time of that Centre for Sustainable Living was having their event. They Centre for Sustainable Living blocked off the street that was next to the public walkway that Ryan wanted to have for the parade. “So we could not have a parade on the public walkway, but we could have a connection to this event. So, people could walk from theirs to ours and people could leave our event and go to theirs. That was actually an interesting coincidence. It was an interesting development that came out of being challenged.”
As mentioned above the ShareFest itself was planned and it intended to boost the sharing movement in Bloomington and it was thus anticipated. Ryan and his friends/colleagues spent four months to organize the event. Even though the organization of the ShareFest was completed successfully, there were also unexpected factors that where not foreseen. During the process of organizing the event Ryan explains that he experienced two important factors that were not anticipated;
Firstly, as mentioned above Ryan had not expected the challenges and barriers of the Bloomington government. According to Ryan the city of Bloomington consist of two groups: A neoliberal and progressive group of students who are very innovative, and a much older and more conservative population and government who do not like changes; “We live in a very, I would say liberal, progressive bubble in a very conservative right-leaning state. So Bloomington in the end is a very liberal and progressive university town, but the state of Indiana is very conservative. And so they, you know, they don't like to listen to us.”
Ryan explains that he did not know how important it would be to inform the government about the event. “Strangely enough, when the city of Bloomington found out that we were planning a ShareFest they were not alarmed, but they were very curious. Bloomington has a lot, you know, like Arts Festivals and Food Festivals and all these things and the city usually is very deeply involved in partnering with the organizers. And I had not really even thought of it, because you know, our group of people is very used to self-organizing without much external stimuli.”
Secondly, it was not anticipated how much work such an event would be. Even though the event was successful, mainly because the ShareFest got a lot of publicity and became more familiar to the locals, it hurt the energy of the organization because it was just too much work. “..It was crazy, because the event was a whole week. Most organizations had an event on one day and ours was a whole week, which was exhausting for us, because the person who had the idea to get the grant actually had to leave town and so my fiancé and I, especially my fiancé, at the bottom-line opened and closed the shop everyday.”
Ryan explains that this hurt the organization internally and that people who had to do all that work during the event, got very tired and needed a break before they could do more work.
The learning points of this CTP are related to factors that where not anticipated (see above). Ryan explains that he now knows that the government wants to be notified when such an event is going to be organized in town. He states: “We have a better connections now (with the government), because some people from the government came to ShareFest. And once they had seen like what it is, I think that they became more comfortable with it and so I think the next time I would do something like that, I would want to try and get them involved more early or at least let them know what was going on more early. So that if they did want to get involved, then instead of being sceptical, they will be enthusiastic and find some other ways to help.”
According to Ryan ShareBloomington has a better relationship now with the government because they inform them and get them involved in their projects if they government wishes to.
Another learning point that was noticed after this CTP is to find consistent volunteers for the following projects in Bloomington. As mentioned in the section ‘anticipation’, there were not enough people to volunteer during the event. This took a lot of energy from the few people who helped with the ShareFest during the whole week. It is important to mention though that ShareBloomington is still struggling with finding consistent volunteers: “I guess if I could do it again or moving forward for all the organizations, I think the biggest thing is, is trying to be creative about recruitment.”
Thus, even they have learned from this CTP and are aware of it, it is still not easy to find people who will be consistently available in town. At this moment Ryan and some others who are consistently active, are trying to get others interested to invest more of their time for the sake of a fair economy.
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