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Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: jbonunsla post-2015?
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From: Bob LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>
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Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2018 15:08:48 -0400
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On 6/9/2018 3:30 PM, xabju wrote:
> First question mark is a typo. More generally, it appears that 
> Lojbanistan has been in a period of relative inactivity for several 
> years, and I wonder why that is.

I think that actually there has been a considerable increase in 
activity, BUT, it is not the sort of activity that gets attention.

The perceived lack of activity is due to a relative vacuum of leadership 
  that is both leading and communicating about the Lojban community as a 
community.

I am partly responsible for this, as Founder and long-time president. 
My (inevitable) decline as I passed into older age and health problems 
left me with the time and energy (and more important, the focus) to see 
that things got done.

Others have stepped up, probably more of you-all than ever stepped up 
before.  But we don't have any single dynamic leader who speaks for the 
community, or even who aspires to speak for even a large chunk of the 
community.  Our much-respected webmaster, Robin Powell largely filled in 
the vacuum as I stepped back, from roughly 2000 to 2015.  But he also 
reached the point where burnout and other competing aspects of life 
(like childrearing) have reduced his time and enthusiasm, as mine had 
ebbed by 2000.

But in the era when I was most active, and again in the era when Robin 
was most active, only a handful of Lojbanists at any one time were in 
the background getting stuff done.  Now there are a lot more, but none 
of them stand out to the community.

As for LogFests, I held them almost singlehandedly up until around 2000, 
here at my house, in conjunction with annual meetings of the LLG formal 
membership, which guaranteed some minimum attendance and also provided 
structure to the weekend-long events.  During Robin's era, Matt Powell 
held a couple of LogFest-like events in Michigan, and others held 
somewhat less-planned events around the US, with Robin usually providing 
much of the leadership/organization involved.  But the events were 
relatively unorganized, and the LLG organization became entirely 
Internet-driven.

Currently, many of the most active Lojbanists are not in the US (selpa'i 
in Germany and gleki in Russia, for example), and the non-US Lojban 
community is less-organized and less able to bring together a "LogFest" 
rather spontaneously.  LLG has passed out of my control, but hasn't yet 
managed to get itself organized to the extent that it can lead others 
into activity.

It will be largely up to the rest of you to step forward (at least some 
of the time) if you want to see things happen.  LLG and the Lojban 
community remain an entirely volunteer organization.  There are a few 
thousand US dollars in the bank to cover incidental expenses, but not 
even enough to pay for one full-time person (or even half-time).  So 
where the community of Lojbanists will go depend on what the members of 
the community step forward and lead others to want to go.

lojbab

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