Some things I've learned from Cacophony - stolen straight from Rev Al's mouth.
There is a curious, almost inverse relationship between attendance and paid subscriptions. Those who are generally out and about doing events seem almost less concerned with maintaining contact as "official members." Those who keep sending in money year after year tend to be in more outlying neighborhoods/cities, and seem to be content with vicarious "membership." It's almost as if the concept of membership were antithetical to the Cacophony ideal (or maybe that's just what I want to see).
And on do-ers vs wanna-bes
You can't really tell who's full of hot air online. This calls for a meeting. Face to face. We've found that actual monthly meetings in the real world help determine who's just an online know-it-all and who's ready to roll up their sleeves and do something. If they never make it to an actual meeting to discuss the ideas they've been going on about, it's clear that they won't make those ideas happen. Then we know to just politely ignore them when they beat their chest online. Meetings are fairly loose, but we do go down an agenda, basically reviewing past events one by one, discussing ideas for the coming month bandied about online, and then opening the floor to whatever new ideas there might be.
Which leads me back to my thoughts on community vs cliques... and are people who only socalize online, just lame-rs instead of do-ers? I should just write up my thoughts on the subject sooner than later.
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