[Apologies for cross-posting]
www.DoBe.org is a new non-profit website that seeks to recruit librarians
and other activists as local editors or facilitators or partners. The site
will be a sort of online Time Out events magazine or bulletin board for
every city in the world (and presently covers every American city and over
600 UK towns and cities, with London as a model site) - but it is only for
*participatory* events, groups, meetings or clubs - it is not for passive
consumer events.
The site may be of interest to those with community information websites or
those involved in projects such as Community Grids for Learning, UK Online
and the People's Network. The site is designed to reduce feelings of social
exclusion and to promote community involvement, lifelong learning and to
bring together community information on ways to participate in local
culture, sport, leisure, education and health issues.
For instance, librarians or local activists could use the site to extend the
facilities offered by their own community website. This participatory events
element could, if desired, be a partnership between DoBe.org and the local
organisation, with the latter's logo on the site. Those interested could
help get the site going for their area by showing a local volunteer how to
post on the site not only their library's or centre's own participatory
events, but also local writing groups, book discussion groups, cancer
self-help groups, walks, football teams, film-making groups, chess clubs and
so on.
But any member of the public can post up events without charge - or can
input their name to register whether they are definitely or probably
attending a particular event. An event organiser has a facility for
e-mailing all would-be participants, without knowing what those e-mail
addresses are. Reviews of events, messages or comments about them can also
be posted up.
There are various safeguards to protect the public, for instance that all
events should be in a public place and that people's e-mail addresses are
kept private. In due course, DoBe.org will be able to provide local editors
with the ability to edit or delete items for their area.
DoBe.org encourages people not just to consume entertainments and films
advertised in events magazines, but to organise their own events where
participants can make a real contribution, feel recognised as unique
individuals and perhaps form friendships with others who share their
interests. The events have to involve more than just passively watching or
listening. The aim is to help to retribalise the cities, to reduce feelings
of loneliness and to enable those who have just arrived to meet local
people.
The site is also promoting the first International Internet-Free Day for Jan
28th 2001, tempting people away from addiction to a half life in a virtual
world by using the resources of the web to create interesting events out in
the real world.
DoBe.org is administered by the Institute for Social Inventions, a
charitable project which has on its notepaper such luminaries as Edward de
Bono, Lord Young of Dartington, Anita Roddick, Brian Eno, Fay Wheldon and
others. It runs a number of innovative websites, including all those in my
signature file below - the main one is the Global Ideas Bank which receives
about 3 million accesses a year.
Please make contact (at [log in to unmask]) if YOU might be able to help
get your local area's participatory events into http://www.DoBe.org - or
just go ahead and give it a try and start posting up events!
--
With best wishes, Nicholas Albery <[log in to unmask]>
The Institute for Social Inventions | Tel +44 [0]20 8208 2853
*also* The Natural Death Centre | Fax +44 [0]20 8452 6434
20 Heber Road, London NW2 6AA, UK
Global Ideas Bank: http://www.globalideasbank.org
Death & dying, woodland burials etc: http://www.naturaldeath.org.uk
ApprenticeMaster Alliance: http://www.apprentice.org.uk
Reciting poems by heart for charity: http://www.poetrychallenge.org.uk
Country walks near London: http://www.walkingclub.org.uk
Canaries walking holidays: http://www.gomera.org.uk
Events, groups & meetings: http://www.DoBe.org
Online book orders: http://www.globalideasbank.org/bookorder.html
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