You can now visit the domain makingchutney.com and find something that resembles a blog. ;-) MyIrony will still be live and active while I’m working on moving things over. I’ll make a big announcement when the move is official.
Thanks to everyone who commented for their advice and encouragement!
Steve Caldwell has advised me to “do a bit of research first before proposing reform ideas.”
Well, Steve, I followed up on your most excellent suggestion and went to check out the UUA’s venerable bylaws. It seems they total over 25,000 words. There are 25 Articles encompassing almost 150 subsections and 15 Rules sections with 82 subsections. (If my calculations are correct.)
Am I done now? Because now I’m even more convinced I don’t need to read the bylaws.
What harm, specifically, came from suggestions that were already in place? Honestly, I’d like to know.
New reform suggestion: only those who are intimately familiar with UUA bylaws may make reform proposals on blogs. (Won’t someone please think of the children??)
Please advise. As Steve pointed out, some of us need to be spoon fed when it comes to our responsibilities as lay leaders to be familiar with what the UUA puts in print about itself. Plus, that sort of thing is always an edifying read!
Looking over the growing list of ideas to “fix UUism” over at ChaliceChick, it occurs to me that the vast majority are about what Roger Kuhrt calls the “hypercorporatism” of the national Association and its authorizing body, the annual General Assembly. Which is to say, they’re really not about fixing butts-in-the-pews Unitarian Universalism at all. We seem to like that just fine.
What we don’t seem to like are the national organization, its bureaucracy, and the annual legislative meeting. Why so many grumpies?
If these were the sort of complaints I kept hearing over and over, in any organization, the message would be pretty clear: the grass roots don’t believe their national organization represents them. Click to continue reading “Fixing UUism (but which one?)”
ChaliceChick just started up a nifty little thing: a contest to come up with the best idea for “fixing” Unitarian Universalism. You can submit your paragraph idea to her, and before too long we’ll be voting on them.
Here are my submissions:
Gentle readers,
Sometime earlier this month My Irony reached its third (!) birthday. And last night I got an itch to make some radical changes, including no less than ditching makingchutney.com altogether. And I need to know what you think.
What am I thinking about? I’m thinking, perhaps, about moving everything over to a new blog, called something like “Making Chutney.”
Why such a big change?
As longtime readers will remember, I lost makingchutney.com last year due to my own flightyness. Because of that, My Irony’s readership (measured in all ways) has dropped by at least half. I am sure that a good deal of that represented spambots, but by no means most of it. Losing the original domain name was a branding fiasco, and I’ve seen the proof in the stats.
I’ve now given makingchutney.com (and also myirony.org) a full year, but readership is still significantly lower than it used to be. My thinking is that a new start, with a more accessible name, would give both myself and my readers a fresh perspective on what I’m trying to accomplish here.
The name “My Irony” has also lost some of its original luster. When I first started the site, my primary blogging interests were Foucault, self-formation, social ethics, and globalization. Which is to say my interests were much more explicitly academic. The name “My Irony” made more sense then, and the Randolph Bourne quote that sits in the sidebar was a good description of what I was about. But irony was no longer the buzzword it once was, and I have written precious little dealing with irony the past year or more.
Another consideration for me is the annual redesign. Somehow it’s turned out that I’ve redesigned My Irony every year about this time. It hasn’t been planned that way, but somehow this is about when I get the itch. And, let me tell you, I’m getting the itch bad. (Some color schemes I’m having a gander at. And also this photo.) I’d like to incorporate more of WordPress 2.0’s new features here, and maybe even incorporate something like Binari Bonsai’s K2 theme and plugin kit. Having a new domain would make that process all the cleaner and easier during the interim, and would let me fill you all in on the progress.
And of course I’ve recently started up Healing Hagar, which draws a good deal of my “god stuff” and “jesus crispy” postings, plus some time and energy. Starting a new “Making Chutney” (or similar) site would make for a cleaner break. It would give me more freedom to do more personal postings since Chutney, and not irony, would be the explicit subject.
What do you think? Should I make the switch? Do you like the new name? Any of the color schemes catch you eye?
I am, gentle readers, listening intently for your responses.
Smell this. It’s awful. (I will not be liable for seizures.)
