Tip of the hat to brillig for last night's Top Comments, wherein I learned about navajo's New Day and this little bit:
Let's build communities!
Every region needs a meat-space community like SFKossacks.
We take care of each other in real life.
I urge YOU to take the lead and organize one in your region.
Please tell us about it if you do and I'm here for advice.
~
THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It's also so we can find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. Members come here to check in. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
The IAN is a community-building group. We could certainly learn a few things from navajo's New Day diaries, and I intend to go back and read through them.
All y'all are welcome to do so, too. New eyes and all that. Some areas may not have as many Kossacks as other areas, but that doesn't mean we can't toss together some "meat-space community like SFKossacks" in our areas, and to let traveling Kossacks know we could meet them for a coffee or a snack or more when they pass through our areas with a little advanced planning.
That might not happen often. Oklahoma is known as the "fly over state" for a reason - most flights pass us to do stop-overs in DFW rather than here. And many other states in the middle of the country are the same. But sometimes, people do pass through Oklahoma.
So, if any Kossacks go through Oklahoma on I-35 or I-40 (our 2 major cross-highways), or fly in to Will Rogers Airport or Wiley Post Airport, I'd be happy to arrange a coffee stop or a dinner. You'll get to meet Itzl in the fur.
You're also all welcome to post diaries or comments here about meet-ups. That was the impetus behind making everyone a BlogEditor - so you could write an IAN diary and post it without waiting for a BogAdmin to approve the diary and publish it. Casual meet-ups would be the best way to start forming buddy partnerships. If we get to know other Kossacks in "meat-space", it's much easier than just knowing them virtually.