Walking a New Path

 

“If you want to be a place you’ve never been,

you have to choose a path you’ve never taken.”

 

REM purposely walks that different path…moves to a different drum. REM endeavors to respond to our peoples’ desire to find new ways of working together…ways built on collaboration and consensus building. If we develop an organizational structure on the old model of democratic process we will recreate the wheel…again. And people will not have a support system based on collaboration or consensus building.

To walk that path takes courage. You will, however, not be walking it alone. Hundreds of people have carved a piece of REM by walking before you since 1995. We like what we’ve formed…but it’s far from done. Your participation is very important. Together we will carve a path and make way for others to join us.

REM moves to a different drum based on two deeply-held principles:

One....

We believe that the power of

community is the

diversity of its people

Two....

We believe that everybody's

ideas, talents, and energies

are important

Most organizations have a one specific purpose.

REM is open to unlimited possibilities in our community.

Those possibilities are linked to the creativity of our people and their willingness to work for positive change.

Sometimes those changes are based on a community need.

More often REM Community Initiatives are based upon an expanded vision of something that could be…creation of a  community asset that moves us toward our dream of a community where people thrive.

REM's Purpose is to provide a forum and a form
for our people to determine their own future by working to create it.

When you take many different people
add many dreams and ideas,
when you
create new ways of working together
you get a very busy REM and...
A new resource,
based on the richness and power of diversity,
fueled by the power of collaboration and the spirit of volunteerism,
building stronger communities
and creating a world nobody believed possible.
Taking the new path is often taking the difficult path.  REM Partner, Tammy Rabideau, of the Waterville Public Library shared a piece from a blog she read written by Seth Godin.  It speaks clearly to the courage and hard work required to successfully follow a different and more difficult path.  It speaks loudly of our values.  

"Of course it's difficult...

Students choose to attend expensive colleges but don't major in engineering because the courses are killer.

Doing more than the customary amount of customer service is expensive, time-consuming and hard to sustain.

Raising money for short-term urgent projects is easier than finding support for the long, difficult work of changing the culture and the infrastructure.

Finding a new path up the mountain is far more difficult than hiring a sherpa and following the tried and true path. Of course it is. That's precisely why it's scarce and valuable.

 The word economy comes from the Greek and the French, and is based on the concept of scarcity. The only things that are scarce in the world of connection and services and the net are the things that are difficult, and the only things that are valuable are the things that are scarce. When we intentionally seek out the difficult tasks, we're much more likely to actually create value."

 

 

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