InterTwinkles Comes to the Millstone Coop: Silliness Ensues!

Last Monday night, Charlie DeTar and I did a workshop introducing the InterTwinkles tools for coops to Millstone Coop.  It started out as we planned, with a general introduction, forming an InterTwinkles group for Millstone, and everyone joining it. Then things got silly, fast!

Before we could even fully explain the purpose of each tool, housemates began using them:

• Someone used Firestarter to ask what everyone’s favorite dessert was.
• Using Dotstorm, some ideas for a house retreat were posted.
• A Twinklepad was used to start a list of our favorite websites.
• Somebody used Points of Unity to launch principles related to food buying and eating
• Another used the Resolve tool to propose that we build a house on an island in Maine

As more and more folks jumped in, housemates asked each other what mystical animal they would be, and made proposals to buy cereal, ice cream, a pony and a goat. Proposals were amended to debate flavors of ice cream and alternatives to buying cereal. One housemate pointed out that goats poop a lot, and blocked the proposal to acquire one.  That proposal was then amended to include the statement “We will only buy goats that don't poop. (Do they then explode?)”  The revised proposal garnered even more support.

Housemates enjoyed using the ability to post ideas and proposals on behalf of other group members, intended to bridge the gap among groups with divergent internet access or usage.  Soon it was clear that one housemate was not saying what was posted in her name, and soon everyone was laughing as we tried to keep up with rapid fire posts and silly proposals.

When discussion of the Progressive Clock began, we were more serious for a few moments, discussing the possibilities and limits to this tool that can measure speaking time in meetings of participants by race, gender or other characteristics.  Then someone discovered how easily the categories could be changed, and our house clock was measuring the speaking time of those with glasses, and without, number of toes, animals and Snapple. (Glasses wearers dominated, but it is fair to say we had advantages in speaking over several other categories)

We concluded the workshop thinking together about how Millstone could use InterTwinkles for our household discussions and decision making.  We imagined how previous house topics about our chickens or pest control could have benefited from these tools.  Then some of us made a trip to JP Licks for ice cream and frozen yogurt.

Really pretty good fun for a Monday night!  Wanna try out InterTwinkles at your coop? Let us know; we make house calls!