About FCF

The Freeland Community Forum is an unusual and innovative organization -- don't be surprised to discover that it is different from what you first thought!

It exists to help those of us who are concerned about the town of Freeland, WA, to better communicate and cooperate with each other. It is open to everyone and is not tied to any particular political or special-interest point of view.

Our mission is to:

• Serve the long-term common good of the Freeland community.
• Start and sustain a community conversation that is ongoing.
• Provide a communications infrastructure that is immediately available when citizens wish to respond to important issues that arise suddenly.
• Establish Freeland as a model for local governance with significant informal citizen involvement.
• Be an information resource about Freeland.

The following diagram illustrates how FCF is organized:

We are a very open group and welcome participation from everyone. The Forum as a whole is made up of everyone on the e-mail list. This is the closest we get to having a 'membership'. Anyone who requests to be put on the e-mail list is put on. There are no dues or other requirements. (If you would like to get on the e-mail list, just click here. If you would like to find out more about what's involved in being on the e-mail list, click here.)

The Forum as a whole works in partnership with various community groups, which range from long-established local groups to ad-hoc groups which come together for a particular issue or project. We like to say that the Forum is like a farmer's market. A farmer's market has certain basic ground rules, but individual vendors are each independent, self-managing entities. In a similar way, the Forum has certain simple guidelines for its partner community groups but otherwise they are self-managing and independent.

The Forum serves as a neutral common ground for controversial issues facing the community. The Forum's partner community groups are free to take positions on such issues, but in doing so they speak only for themselves, not for the Forum. In fact it would be possible for there to be two different community groups that took opposing positions on the same issue. This is fine since the purpose of the Forum as a whole is to improve communications and involvement in the community, not to promote a particular point of view on a particular issue.

To find out more about how to start a community group with the help of the Forum, go here. To find out about current community groups use the links at the top left of this page.

Each community group designates one of its members to be part of the Liaison Group, which exists to enable the community groups to keep in touch with each other and coordinate the timing, resources, and process of their various projects with each other. This coordination is completely voluntary -- the Liaison Group has no authority over the community groups.

The Hearth Group (for 'tenders of the Hearth') maintains the e-mail list and other administrative functions for the Forum as a whole, stays in touch with the various community groups to provide assistance where needed, and pays attention to ways that the Forum could be improved. In doing these things it acts as an overall facilitator for the Forum as a whole.

These elements are linked together through:

• meetings and other activities of the community groups
• a monthly meeting for the Liaison and Hearth Groups
• ongoing communications via this website (with its online conferencing system) and through face-to-face conversations, e-mail, phone, etc.

To find out in more detail about the Forum, look at our Guidelines and History.

But to really find out about the Forum, get on the e-mail list and get involved. It's a lot of fun!