THE MEADOWCREEK PROJECT

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Anyone who comes to work at the Arkansas settlement first joins the project on a trial basis. After four weeks, and again after six months, he or she meets with the directors for a job evaluation. Then, at the end of a year, permanent membership — for a person who wishes to stay on — is decided by community vote.

GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE

In fact, all decisions at Meadowcreek are arrived at by way of the same procedure used to admit a new member . . . that is, by a majority vote. David and Wil stress that they're not dictators, but neither is the project a commune where people simply "do their own thing".

Meadowcreek is actually a nonprofit, taxexempt corporation headed by three directors. The Orr brothers are permanent "officers", and the third position rotates—on a yearly basis—among the other people in the project. Major issues are presented to the community members at regular meetings, and solutions are chosen by individual balloting. The directors, however, retain the power to break any ties . . . and David and Wil say that the arrangement has worked well at Meadowcreek. They're occasionally accused of being too authoritarian, but the founders feel that the arrangement gives their community a valuable degree of stability by allowing them to keep it working toward its original goals.

The Orrs have resisted the temptation to write a formal project constitution, however. David has drafted a set of rules for the woodshop, a building code, and membership guidelines ... but on the whole, the brothers believe in letting the community's mode of governance evolve naturally. They also feel that their members' respect for and tolerance of one another will exert a certain degree of selfdiscipline. As Wil notes, "Straight human compassion can displace a lot of written rules."

From Meadowcreek's beginning, therefore, its founders have attempted to combine that element of human compassion (which they see as lacking in many alternative communities that ultimately failed) with down-to-earth practicality (a deficiency of which, on the other hand, has caused the demise of many exclusively spiritual groups). Meadowcreek, it would seem, hopes to represent the best of both worlds. By synthesizing and bringing together, at one site, many of the best technologies and alternatives that are now available, the Orr brothers' sustainable model may soon provide a powerful example of how we can live sanely, in both the near and the distant future.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Visitors are welcome at Meadowcreek but should first write or call for an appointment. If you'd like to know more about the community, send $2.00 to the Meadowcreek Project, Inc. (Dept. TMEN, Fox, Arkansas 72051) for a packet of information.

The alternative community concept has been explored in the pages of this magazine before. "A Good Look at The Farm" (MOTHER NO. 62, page 138) reported on a visit to Stephen Gaskin's 1,000-member settlement in Tennessee . . . while "Findhorn: A Bright Light in a Dark World" (No. 71, page 32) looked at a spiritual planetary village in northern Scotland. Turn to page 68 for back issue ordering information. And if you'd like to join MOTHER's Visit to Findhorn and Friends in May of this year, you'll find the facts on page 66..

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