We're Officially an Org ~ ExGld
Hello Explorers!
Earlier this year I made some vague references to changes happening in the Explorers Guild. Though I haven't publicly addressed them yet, I think they're really exciting, but in today's dispatch I'll finally give an update on it all. If you'd rather skip the full story, here's a tl;dr:
The Explorers Guild is now a 501(c)(7). The plan behind this is to create a lasting organization serving our community for many years to come. We are continuing to offer events, just as we were before, and if you're someone who is interested in helping us make more of them, we'd love to talk with you.
Past
When I started the Explorers Guild in 2015, the idea was simply to bring people together to play with stories and build the bonds of friendship. After those first few expeditions though, I saw the bones of something that could be special, and found a bunch of other people who saw the same thing. I personally committed to the Explorers Guild as a long term, evolving and improving, art project with no specific ending. Over the years though, I've seen what this community has meant to people, and how we built it and adapted together. Field guides, badges, caravan rallies, workshops, overnight camping trips, overseas adventures - these all came over time.
During the New Year's Eve celebration at the end of 2022 I took an opportunity to ask some long standing Explorers: "If I just quit tomorrow, would the Explorers Guild continue on?" After assuring everyone that I wasn't planning to go anywhere, we chatted for the rest of the afternoon about what the Explorers Guild meant to them and how we would want it to continue on. The consensus was that we all absolutely wanted the Explorers Guild to continue, but I needed to share knowledge and leadership with them.
From here we talked about what they needed to know and how I could make that information available. We decided to create a small leadership group, the Explorers Guild Council, that would meet once a month to discuss what made our community the Explorers Guild, and document the institutional knowledge. This in turn led us to consider how to improve our ongoing documentation process.
As we talked about the continuity of the Guild, we recognized that more members should be entrusted with responsibilities. For example, we wanted to open a bank account for the organization, so that a group of Explorers, and not just me, could oversee Guild finances and allocate funds to projects, not just me. As part of sharing responsibility, I also wanted to make sure that our organization remains a caring place for explorer-y weirdo types. Instrumental to this idea was putting safeguards in place to make sure no one person or small group could destroy this community for explorer-y weirdos.
Present
To make this all happen, we decided to form a 501c7 (a federally recognized Social Club). We created bylaws, formed a board and voted on officers, filled out forms, and composed a code of conduct. As of December 20, 2023 we are officially incorporated as The Explorers Guild.
Structurally, we decided to keep our council and our board of directors separate. The council will organize the month to month activities. This group works together to figure out what activities we're going to do, who's leading them, and what those leaders need to be successful. Meanwhile the elected board fills out the paperwork, keeps track of the financials, handles potentially sensitive situations, and continues to adjust and adopt the bylaws to better serve the organization.
The names behind these groups are ones that you likely see at many of our events.
Last year's council included: Belle Cunningham, Deprong Mori, Lark, Panopticon, Scylla, Tilde, Turtleish, Tybeck, Wisp, Zepheer and myself (Dr. Professor).
This year's council includes: Belle Cunningham, Tree, Drew, Lark, Lily, Panopticon, Scylla, Zepheer, and myself (Dr. Professor).
Here are the members of the board.
President: Dr Professor
Secretary: Belle Cunningham
Treasurer: Lark
Board members at large: Denorae and Panopticon
Future
I see the formalization of this organization as a part of the story of adaptation I mentioned above. The forms, the meetings, the intentional clarification of who we are and what we stand for - we're going through this process as a part of the art practice. If what we're doing is engaging in a long term art project, it’s fitting that one of the chapters in our story is about how we took these steps to a formal organization. A future chapter will be about the first generation of explorers stepping away and how the next picks up the story, but that will be written years from now.
Unless you are involved with event planning, you won’t notice much difference in your Explorers Guild experience. The one obvious change will be that we are required to officially register members. You will receive more information about this soon.
If you’d like to be a part of the leadership group, let us know. Enthusiasm, a willingness to collaborate, and a desire to produce adventures are all you need. Now is a great time to start shaping a vision for the future of the Explorers Guild.
This is bigger than the Explorers Guild…
Nobody I've ever met starts a community art project with excited rallying cries to incorporate as a 501(c)(7). It's just not where the fun is. Only when it becomes important to others do you start looking out for the future.
I'm mentioning this because, over the years, I've seen a lot of groups with great ideas break under the weight of their success. Sometimes it's due to artists with great visions but who are terrible with people, or just bad business practices. Others fail because someone's ego takes over and those that worked the hardest are left feeling unappreciated. I'm hoping that we are laying the groundwork for the Explorers Guild to avoid these circumstances.
Furthermore, I know there are art communities that are created every day, and none of them start with a desire to write a code of conduct. Here's our new code of conduct to help keep all our members safe and enable the best experiences for everyone: Explorers Guild Code of Conduct. By letting you all know what we are doing and why, maybe we can help some other groups likewise starting a similar journey. Heck, this process felt so much more attainable thanks to conversations with members at Raining Chainsaws. We are not alone, and neither are you.
So yes, let us continue to build puppet dragons and go on crazy adventures. Let’s keep finding places where we can interpret the world through artistic practices, and pursue stories. Let’s always keep wonder in our hearts. But let us do this with an eye on the future, our thoughts on the past, and our love towards one another always.
Semper Explorandum, Explorers
