Opening
A festival of thousands can deliver a weekend of belonging that evaporates by Tuesday. Meanwhile the small group that notices you missing is the one that actually shows up. Richard Bartlett has built a framework for telling those scales apart, and for giving each one the treatment it needs.
Scale, not effort, is usually what decides the difference.
The idea
Richard Bartlett is a community builder from New Zealand, now based in Europe, and the creator of the micro solidarity framework. His starting point is scale sensitivity. Different group sizes are good for different things, and most organising fails because people do not match the task to the scale.
Two people form a dyad, where power dynamics appear and can be shaped from domination toward partnership, a distinction he borrows from Riane Eisler. Five people form what he calls a crew, large enough for diverse perspective and small enough that everyone can hold shared context without structure.
His own family of origin supplied the example of rhythm, a tight religious community whose weekly gatherings and mutual care networks created dependable belonging. He also offered a lesson on endings.
Groups live longer when they are born with an end in mind, a writing club invited for five sessions rather than forever, because a built in pause gives people a graceful way to renew, change, or leave.
He carried the rhythm into his own family, holding a Friday heart circle where nobody may premeditate what they will say. His shorthand for the alternative is neighbourhoods, not communes, where connection is strong but expectations stay liveable.
He said:
“When I most need help, that is the moment where I am least able to ask for help.”
That is why rhythm matters. A preexisting beat, a weekly or monthly gathering, carries you through the seasons when asking is impossible.
What I took from it
Richard named something I had lived but never articulated. In the ecovillage we shared around 13 community meals a week, and the Friday heart circle was the rhythm that held the harder weeks together.
Since moving to Canada from the UK I have been building my own distributed version of that belonging, regular digital gatherings with my wider orbit and a small local crew I can count on.
The insight that the moment you most need help is the moment you are least able to ask for it now sits at the centre of how I design connection.
Three things to try this week
- Look at one group you belong to and name its scale out loud, whether it is a dyad, a crew, or something larger. Ask whether the expectations match the size. Name it in one sentence, without apology, and see what the naming reveals. The naming alone often shows whether the group is serving anyone at all.
- Start one time limited invitation this week. Five people, three sessions, with a pause built in to reflect and decide together whether to renew. The pause is the design. Without it, groups drift on out of politeness. Keep the first session simple so the second has somewhere to go.
- Put one recurring gathering in the calendar this month for a group you love, so support does not depend on anyone finding the words to ask for it. A calendar invitation is a small act of care that outlasts any single crisis. Regularity beats intensity. A small beat kept is worth more than a grand one missed.
Watch and go deeper
The conversation with Richard is embedded below. Watch it for the scales, the shared houses, and the gathering tech. Explore his work at richdecibels.com.
Explore Richard Bartlett’s website.
New conversations land on the Rediscovering Connection channel most weeks, and you can subscribe at the Rediscovering Connection channel.
Close
Community is not a mood. It is scale and rhythm working together, and both can be designed by anyone willing to start smaller than they assumed. Start smaller than feels impressive and stay steadier than feels natural. Explore the research, then sit with the question this article closes on.