Tom is based in New Zealand and does a range of things within the EA NZ and EA Wellington communities under the broad umbrella of Community Building . They have a background in Youth Development, Personal Development, and Outdoor Education and also volunteer in these spaces. They are (only somewhat actively) looking for additional part time/project based EA work.
Tom has taken the GWWC Pledge, and is broadly cause agnostic, though is personally passionate about Improved Institutional Decision Making.
Strong upvote for a thought provoking read, thanks David.
I’m not entirely sold on the argument as stated, in part due to a different experience with city group attendance—a guess (with no data to support) would say my local group has <25% of attendees attend only one event in a given year, compared to EA London’s 75%; and impact—we’ve had a significant number of regular attendees switch to EA aligned careers in ways that seem less likely had there not been a strong community.
I agree with a weaker form of the argument, that “National EA groups shouldn’t (primarily) focus on city groups” and as a result of reading this will likely think more about how to add value for non group-members in the future.
I strongly agree that community builders thinking/operating on a National level should think about ways to engage with and support EA aligned people who are not part of regularly convening groups (for preference, geography, or other reasons).