Draft bobforum
From SI Exco News
SERVAS INTERNATIONAL WORLD NEWS
S I Free Press
Servas is a precious fellowship of peace minded people of all races and many beliefs in over 130 countries that can become an ever brighter lighthouse in a very troubled world. Our potentials are great but we can only realize them if we make the right efforts now. The flowering of Servas won't happen by itself. But if we can plant the right seeds and conserve the water we can create oasis where deserts invade. Our world is overflowing with people, young and old, who are eagerly looking for future hope and constructive activities. They feel the terrible destructive trends -- increase in starvation and various kinds of wars. Some are eagerly looking for activities where they can put their efforts to build a better global community in which to raise their children and grand children. The great majority of people in our world want to further a generous world but most of them find few opportunities that seem to offer long range hope. There are many short term programs that patch up the holes but they want to be in something that sees long range changes that can assure future generations a gentle and just life.
What does t his have to do with free hosting? A lot more than you see on the surface. The future of Servas International as a peace building association is dependent upon the active participation of our members all over the world who are more than just host organizers. Many are ones who share the vision that motivates us. Without their work we can fall into an undemocratic trap where a few individuals and groups engineer most decisions to suit their particular purposes, often contrary to the development of our long-range purposes. If some small interest group captures SI it will stunt our growth and can even destroy it. If Servas International is undermined it purposes can be so totally perverted it will have little value in comparison to what its goals have been of working for a harmonious, intercultural movement for world justice and peace.
You national secretaries, you regular members of Servas, by your participation will decide what Servas becomes. On the other hand your inaction can guarantee Servas losing its direction and vision. It will then become only a travel club with little vision and long range purpose, lacking the spark that generates its power. In this guise it will attract people who care little for its long range goals, who have little interest in its vitality who are satisfied to only sit and wait for visitors or make an occasional trip visiting a few hosts who happen to be conveniently located along their way. But there are already travel clubs that offer that kind of free hospitality. They will discover that a program that lacks a deeper and long-range vision has too little foundation. It will not attract the dedicated people who have for over half a century made Servas the leading global network it is.
A world wide successful movement of dedicated volunteers is no accident. It has elements that may not show on the surface any more than the foundation of your house shows. Without a foundation your house is in grave danger to be swept away by changing conditions. The long range purpose of Servas may seem unimportant to the casual member but it is the long lasting foundation that has made Servas thrive.
A program with inner bickering dominated by those who care little for peace action and intercultural understanding will crumble. It will be dominated by people who like free hosting in colorful places and little more. They will be people who have little interest in Servas becoming increasingly a light in a troubled world, an inspiration to young people looking for meaningful activities that reduce the causes of war, injustice and violence.
You Servas members, by your action or inaction, may well decide the future of Servas. No individual can give vitality to a wide flung organization. It takes a lot of caring members. You can decide if you want to sit at our funeral or you want to celebrate our new awakening?
WE NEEDED AN OPEN CONSTRUCTIVE GLOBAL FORUM.
Our former ServasNet became overrun by a few angry persons who drove it into the ground. In an effort to bring it back to the concerned members it has become tangled in too much control. It has thus lost much of its original dynamics. We need an open forum that is read by concerned Servas people all over the world. Even more important it should be one that has constructive contributions from every where. We can edit out the anger and personal attacks without censoring the ideas. We must welcome widely differing perspectives. It is in the mix of viewpoints that vital thinking is generated. I would like to see us create a SERVAS FREE PRESS that is read by all the national secretaries around the world, and is read by all the Servas concerned members.
It should have a couple of editors who are trusted without others breathing down their necks who don't trust them to make reasonable choices. Advisors, yet, censors, NO. Those managers, board members, national secretaries who do not agree with what is included would always be free to express their differing opinions but not to gag the editors. We will make little progress until we learn to trust eachother.
I see this as separate from EXCO, separate from any clique or special interest group but something that is free flowing, stimulating and exciting. Since it was on the Servas web it would be it would cost Servas almost nothing. Incidentally it would fit in well with my efforts to evolve with the cooperating of Servas members around the world a global Servas standards that guided us all in our interrelations.
I would like to help edit such an open forum at least to get it on the road. There must be many other members who would like to help launch it.
