Take People Out Of Their Community To Build Community
Retreats are core, not ancillary
Our Spring Cohort is wrapping up — it’s not too late to apply for membership!
Every year we’ve done a Maxwell summer camp upstate.
Last month Maxwell members independently organized a ski trip without any help from our team.
Each time we do something like this we hear rave reviews of the bonding that happens and members bring those relationships back into the club and show up more often.
But while I’ve recognized the value of retreats, I have not always viewed them as a core part of the organism, the ecosystem, that we’re building at Maxwell.
I’ve admittedly at times rolled my eyes at organizations that are based on taking you out of your community to build community.
But recently I’ve started coming around more and more to the idea that these experiences are not ancillary but core to every true community.
Because real life is too hectic to expect people to concentrate on each other, you need to remove people from their daily and weekly stresses and put them into a fantasy land in order to facilitate real bonding.
In many ways this is obvious — the times of life we bond the most is when we’ve been able to cluster ourselves away from real life’s stressors.
We move to small communities for 4 years during college and live in a fantasy land where the harshest consequences of spending more time partying and bonding is a failed grade.
We go to summer camp as kids, little worlds with their own mini economies, dining halls, entertainment facilities, drama and create lifelong “camp friends.”
Some of our best bonding moments that build the relationships that drive the rest of our lives are built by constructing temporary fantasy lands that allow for that bonding.
Recently I’ve participated in a couple think tank fellowship programs and I noticed myself that no matter how many dinners they threw or meetups they had, it wasn’t until the weekend trip came up that any true bonds were really formed.
We’re starting to lean more heavily into smaller more regular retreats at Maxwell — more summer house shares, more weekends away, more ski trips.
If you’re interested in learning more, apply for membership!
David, Joelle & The Maxwell Team