The Camphill Movement Group and its Membership

The Purpose of the Camphill Movement Group and its Membership.

Authored as a draft by the Movement Core Group October 2020.

Introduction.

The Camphill Movement, founded in 1940 in Scotland, consists of organizations, initiatives, and communities grouped associatively across eight geographic regions. While each region has its own way of working, often supported by the legal form of a regional association, there is no worldwide legal body or association for the Camphill Movement as a whole. Instead, the various regions work together through a number of established organs, as well as through informal relationships, exchange and shared activities involving people and communities across the regions. This interconnectedness and the living interrelationships and ongoing dialogue allow the Camphill Movement to grow and evolve as a cohesive global movement with a shared vision that is expressed in diverse and ever-changing forms in different contexts.

Founded in 1964, The Camphill Movement Group is one of these non-executive organs of the Camphill Movement. Other organs of the Camphill Movement include for instance: The Camphill Inner Community, and The Camphill Dialogue.

The Camphill Movement is affiliated to the Anthroposophical Society. It is a member of the Anthroposophical Council for Inclusive Social Development, together with many other anthroposophical organizations active in the disabilities field and in inclusive community building.

1. Purpose of the Camphill Movement Group:

To coordinate and encourage networking and association across the Camphill movement, between regions, organisations and communities: to foster the ongoing development of inclusive, social and community practices that support people achieving sustainable livelihoods.

To represent the Camphill Movement within the Anthroposophic Council for Inclusive Social Development and foster networking, exchange and dialogue with the wider network of anthroposophic organizations engaged in inclusive community building and support of persons with disabilities and other at-risk groups.

2. Objectives of the Camphill Movement Group:

● To further the understanding of the Camphill Movement and its various regions in a changing world;

● To stimulate interest, encounter, discourse, exchange of experience, joint inquiry, critical reflection, learning and communication across the Camphill Movement;

● To be a facilitator of research and development on issues that touch and challenge the Camphill Movement;

● To engage with other organs of Camphill, the Anthroposophical Society, the Anthroposophic Council for Inclusive Social Development and the various other working fields and sections of the School of Spiritual Science .

● To engage with other international bodies, when opportunities for dialogue arise, with the intention of enhancing knowledge and understanding in the field of inclusive social development.

3. Purpose of membership

Members of the Movement Group serve as delegates for their region to maintain the cross-regional relationships, dialogue and exchange. The purpose of membership is to enable a process of encounter, discourse, critical reflection, learning, communication and associative working between members from across the Camphill Movement: to engender, reflect on and further develop inclusive, social and community practices that support people achieving sustainable livelihoods.

4. How is the membership of the Movement Group made up?

All organisations, communities and initiatives that their regional association recognizes as members of the Camphill Movement are also considered members of the worldwide Camphill Movement. There is no separate membership process outside of the processes established in the various regions. The Camphill Movement Group is made up of delegates appointed by each region, based on the processes and ways of working established in that region. It also includes a Core Group, with cross-regional composition that coordinates the work of the Movement Group. A member of the leadership of the Anthroposophic Council for Inclusive Social Development joins the Core Group in an ex-officio capacity and the Core Group selects one of its members as the Movement Group’s delegate to the Council.

5. Does the Movement Group Delegate communicate with the wider membership of his/her region and beyond?

Yes:

● Bilaterally as an individual person from a Camphill, through their personal connections across the Camphill Movement;

● Bilaterally as Camphill communities, organisations and initiatives through bilateral meetings and associative activities together;

● Through meetings and interactions within the framework of a regional association;

● Through delegates and core group members who are endorsed by the appropriate regional association and who then participate in the activities of the Movement Group and then provide feedback to the members of regional associations who in turn give feedback to the relevant stakeholder groups within the member organisation.

6. How do the delegates and core group members carry out their function as Movement Group members?

● The Movement Group meets once a year in person, typically over the course of 5 days. This meeting includes delegates and core group members and is hosted by a different region each year. The Core Group typically meets one further time per year in person to prepare the annual meeting, to follow up on other Movement Group activities that arise from the meeting and to foster dialogue and exchange in between the annual meetings. The Core Group’s delegate in the Council also attends the Council’s annual meeting.

● The delegates carry out their responsibilities by supporting and participating in the activities of the regional association and other regional organs and activities. This requires an active partnership between the region’s delegates and other leadership roles in the region. The exact form that this engagement takes may differ from region to region, depending on the established structures and forms of regional collaboration. However, involvement in and awareness of regional-level processes is an important element that enables the delegate to support the region’s connection with the worldwide Camphill Movement and its other regions through the Movement Group.

● The regions support the activities of delegates through:

○ Mandating suitable candidates;

○ Supporting the delegates’ role of dialogue, dissemination and communication; between members within a regional association and the wider Camphill movement;

○ Through participating in the compilation of regional reports that are shared by delegates at the Movement Group summer meeting;

○ Through receiving feedback from delegates who attended the summer meeting and facilitating circulation of the feedback to the relevant stakeholder groups within the region and within individual communities;

○ Providing resources and support to delegates so that they can carry out their responsibilities as delegates;

○ Considering requests to host Movement Group meetings or Core Group meetings.

7. What is the benefit of membership?

In the absence of an international Camphill association, the Camphill Movement Group is the only formal organ through which the Camphill Movement fosters and maintains its cohesion as a worldwide movement of communities and initiatives with shared values, principles and origins, supporting each other in the development of that work across diverse context and into a rapidly evolving future.

While the Camphill Inner Community provides a space in which individuals who are committed to the spiritual impulses behind the Camphill Movement can meet, and the Camphill Dialogue (as a series of conferences taking place every three years) allows board members and supporters of the Camphill Movement to connect across regions, the Camphill Movement Group connects the regional networks and associations, their member organizations and those directly involved in the work of communities and initiatives across the movement. The enrichment of practice and community identity that arises from this associative interacting and working is crucial to the ongoing development and future viability of the Camphill Movement as a global movement and is a source of inspiration, renewed vision and ideas for the regions, communities and initiatives that make up this global movement.