As someone not too afraid to fail at things I am currently a member/founder/leader of two organizations. This week was the post Labor Day, come to Jesus, come to the meeting to see who is really a member week for both of them. On Monday the Boston Bootstrap network held it’s second meeting at Flat Top Johnnies and we had a total of three people at the meeting. This was a bit of a drop-off from the 25 or so who attended the first month but Bijoy, the founder of Bootstrap Austin, is a big proponent of quality over quantity. So that group will be slowly growing from our small core of three people.

The Off The Shallow End improv group on Wednesday met where the general concept was that anyone who didn’t show-up was going to be declared by default someone unable to perform in the group going forwards. By sending out a stern message our leader, Suzy, got replies back with potatoes in or out from most of the former class. We lost four people including Gadi, who couldn’t make the commitment because he is starting a class this fall on data structures. So our Improv group has shrunk from 11 people graduating in the class to about six dedicated improvisers. The nice thing about having the smaller set of people involved now is that we can all commit to working harder and more focused on improving. We spent a while talking about getting a director for the group and Suzy and I butted heads about how we needed to fix some problems independent of a director with regards to work ethic for the group. After a long pow-wow we got to doing some improv and had some great scenes based on detailing an environment.

So fall is a time of contraction and harvesting for my hobby groups. I like the tightening of the groups to their essentials. It makes me more comfortable to see commitment and common interests in a few people than to wonder about it with a larger group that doesn't all share common purposes. It makes me think back to the Good to Great and Electric Acid Cool Aid Test discussions about success of organizations being about getting commitment for the question - "Are you on the bus or not?" and getting the people who want to be off the bus off as well as upping the ante for the people who want to be on the bus.