Page 17: On-going, on-line communication
From SI Exco News
Servasnet has vibrated in the past year, not always in the friendly spirit of an organization working toward peace. A message from the founder of a Servas alternative, where hosts and travellers meet by e-mail with no interviews or letters of introduction, however, prompted some deep thinking about the purpose of our club.
- Hi All,
Found this in my mailbox from Veit, Hospitality Club founder. Well, the future will show what will happen, but I am very confident that in a few years, we will have one million members exchanging hospitality, and it will become more and more difficult for Servas to hang in there. It sounds like Veit has issued a serious challenge, doesn't it? …I joined the HC recently, out of curiosity mainly, and found that many Servas members were in the HC too. Why Servas? Well, I like the fact that it is more 'lively' than the HC, which is rather remote and clinical. Sure we have major disputes and bloody, shaky administration, as you can see on Servasnet, but these very things that you see as weaknesses can turn out to be assets - the passionate debate on Servasnet (even the histrionics) give us opportunity to get involved in the evolution of Servas. It is possible and indeed, it is an engrossing challenge to reform our administrative weaknesses- we will learn, in real time, and with real pain and sacrifice, what peace and compromise mean to us. Peace building is a messy business involving day-to-day compromises with reality, and no computer is going to help us in that regard, I think! I think also that Servas has a much better chance of building community spirit and enduring friendships than the HC. There's so much scope in Servas for local, regional and international meetings… We will continue to bicker over money, to agonise over our differences, to fight for fairer distribution of resources, to confront our limitations - that is the human/peace dilemma, isn't it? Much more so than spending nice holidays with nice people with not a word passed in anger or frustration? Good luck with your million-traveller goal, Veit. I hope that the HC succeeds, as that is good for all of us. Servas may surprise you yet!
Cheers, Mullai, Singapore, <mullaipathy@yahoo.com.sg>
- From Amsterdam:
Servas is just a collection of host lists in which hospitable individuals, so called 'hosts', offer hospitality to strangers, so called 'travellers'. It fundamentally needs no law, no structure, no hierarchy and no leadership. It needs a minimum of organization to bring the two real key persons of the so called 'hospitality network', the travellers and the hosts, together. The rest is projection and ambition, in fact superfluous, ballast. We as an organisation do not even have the guts, the vision, like the young founder of the Hospitality Club does, to say we hope to have a million travellers using us. Servas is a valuable organisation with a historical background that upstarts like the Hospitality Club do not have. But if we continue to fail our members and continue to neglect the many internal reforms we need, the upstarts will overtake us.
Servasnet, a mailing list open to members and friends of Servas, offers the chance to share ideas, thoughts and news. Founded in May 1996, this e-mail discussion group now has more than 450 subscribers from all over the planet. Subscribe: servasnet-subsrcibe@yahoogroups.com Post messages at: servasnet@yahoogroups.com Messages should be not too long and related to Servas and its aims. Spamming (bulk e-mailing) is NOT permitted. For comments or suggestions: "Daniele Passalacqua" servasnet-moderator@servas.org Visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/servasnet
