Guiding Principles

Guiding Principles

REM’s Foundation

REM is a grassroots organization born in this very community in 1995. The seeds of REM’s conception were embedded in people’s feelings about how things that were very important to their lives were being done.

Democracy and our freedom are important to most Americans. People’s vision for how democracy should be and its actuality were in conflict. Today it is even worse. There is a great disconnect between this huge system that no one seems able to understand and the people it rules.

REM strives to bring people together in a non-governmental process that connects people to each other, helps them create commonly held visions, and then supports their work to transform visions into realities. REM believes that how we work together, the process and tools we provide, will be an instrumental part of our success. The foundation of our success is the guiding principles we agree upon and implement together.

It was imagined in Jeffersonian thought that there would be a non-government sector of democracy.  Perhaps that is what is being built by our local Maine citizens.  Those who worked to develop REM saw REM as a positive reaction to the general feeling of disenfranchisement from government.  The intention was and is to join hands with the governmental sector and work collaboratively.

It is interesting that the guiding principles adopted for the non-governmental sector are based on consensus building and eradicating the vote.  The intent is to place the focus of our work together on maintenance of the team.  It has required us to work hard to learn new skills...many of which were skills used by our native American ancestors.