M AJOR CHANGES HAVE COME TO THE SUNRISE RANCH COMMUNITY in the last four years--and that includes how many of us earn a living!
Things look pretty much the same. Our 360 acres of fields and pastures are nestled in a narrow valley flanked by curving red rimrock and a green, pine-covered ridge. Our physical infrastructure is substantial: over the decades we've built many homes and an apartment complex for members and guests. We have a back-up electric power generator, water treatment plant, a huge garden, a livestock and dairy operation, administrative and maintenance centers, a large dome auditorium, and a retreat center with a commercial kitchen and dining facilities. One of the older communities in the Rocky Mountain region, Sunrise was formed in 1945 with just seven members. It began and still serves as the headquarters for the International Emissary network, a non-sectarian spiritual community of friends around the world. Currently 107 people live here, ranging in age from six months to several in their late eighties.
Sunrise shares values similar to other communities: a sense of land stewardship and care that respects the rhythms of nature, a strong desire to live and work together in harmonious relationship, and the acknowledgment of the divine source in each one. Living these values in practical daily relationship is a strong part of our intention.
Until about four years ago, our community was entirely supported by donations from our wide network. Virtually all residents worked on the site, dedicated to various Emissary programs: managing correspondence courses, teaching classes, sharing attunements (our healing modality), producing international conferences; or they supported the community itself: in agriculture, cooking, domestic service, maintenance, and so on. Many residents worked long, hard hours, motivated by the Emissary vision.
Friends and supporters around the world sent donations to Sunrise Ranch to enable us to do this work. Some of the donation income went to national and international programs, some to maintenance and supplies, some to support the residents themselves. Everyone received room, board, a medical allotment, and a monthly stipend for incidental expenses. This gave residents a sense of security and the understanding that, in working together, all would somehow be cared for. The community generally did care for everyone's needs, and the resources were available to do that.
However, in 1988, with the death of Martin Exeter, the second spiritual leader of the Emissaries, it became clear that change was upon us! The revenue from donations steadily decreased, which compelled us to explore new ways of supporting our community and its residents, relying more on our own initiative. We found ourselves in another stage of growth. During this time, we also shifted from a fairly hierarchical model of management to a consensus-based governance with elected councils and rotating leadership. The transition to consensus decision making, as many know, is not without trials and tribulations, labors and weary moments. Rolling all these pieces together--becoming economically more self-sufficient while creating a whole new way of living and working together--was, and is, to say the least, challenging.
While we were all increasingly aware that we couldn't support our programs and our members in the way we had before, and while some activities and job positions within the community ended (for example, we no longer ran as many Emissary programs, or saw the need for hosts to seat people in our dining room), we had no conscious intent to downsize. We did not ask anyone to leave, nor did we put subtle pressure on anyone to do so. Instead, we trusted that we would be guided in the right direction. Some people left, confused or unsettled by the changes. However, many people who left did so because it felt like the right timing, the right rhythm in their cycle, to go on to the next phase of their lives. We gave people all the assistance we could, often including many months of free or low-cost rent while they explored various options.
Now, about half the employable adults work outside the community and pay rent, and in most cases, board. Some work on site in their own cottage industries, and also pay their expenses. The rest of our members work for the community itself, in Emissary programs (such as sharing attunements or the International Emissary Youth Network), in maintaining the community, and in the community's retreat and conference center business, as kitchen staff, gardeners, maintenance people, hosts, financial managers, and domestic service workers. About 25 of our residents are retired elders, who work in varying levels of productivity.
We asked ourselves then, and continue to ask, "What is the appropriate number of people required to run Sunrise Ranch?" We've created managers and work teams who, working over time, are getting a more realistic grasp of how many person-hours it takes to run various areas. We are creating more cleanly defined boundaries and clearer pathways for accountability. We are becoming more professional.
Where before working outside the community and paying rent was not an option (for reasons often not clearly defined or understood), now working outside is encouraged, particularly as a means of assisting people in what is now recognized as a natural growth and transition cycle of change and maturity. Our values have changed in the sense that we explore and accept forms of expression that in the past would have been unacceptable (for example, working on "shadow side" issues and attending personal transformation workshops). But I think, in review, that our history shows this kind of value reassessment is to the good!
We encourage entrepreneurs in our midst. We support them in creating cottage industries with free or low-cost rent of facilities for the start-up months or through donated labor hours to help with new business ventures.
Let me introduce you to some of these community entrepreneurs.
Two of our residents created DC Drums, which makes beautiful African-style djembe drums. One partner, a former woodworker and finish carpenter, invented a machine that hollows out logs for these wooden drums. No trees are felled: the wood comes from windfalls of cottonwood and elm trees in city streets. Some musicians say DC Drums are the best djembe drums made. The new age musician Yanni has a DC Drum in the percussion section of his group.
Two other members, who ran the community's livestock, dairy, and farming operation, created a Community-Supported-Agriculture (CSA) business, where people from as far as 70 miles away buy shares in the garden and pick up their weekly supplies of organically grown vegetables. Sunrise Farm and CSA Garden is supported not only by its 40 shareholders, but by revenue from sales of the farm's fresh eggs and organic meat; and through the member-owned dairy co-op, organic goat and cows' milk; and by farm tours for schoolchildren. Our community helped this business get started in major ways, including granting a 10-year lease of the farm facilities, gifting the business with equipment and livestock, and placing a substantial order for meat and eggs the first year.
Two other members manage a distribution node of a long distance telephone service and rent office space from the community, handling telephone accounts for community members and others across the United States. Other members are creating network marketing businesses, selling a variety of health products or automotive additives. Some entrepreneurs are artists, making paintings, jewelry, or craft products, which they sell at galleries, craft fairs, or our own artists' guild shop. All these enterprises were born out of the enthusiasm and interest of the individuals involved.
In 1993, Sunrise Ranch started up its own retreat and conference business, utilizing facilities already on site and accommodating residential groups as large as 70 with meeting space for more than 400. This booming activity now provides nearly one-third of the annual operating revenue for the community. The business requires 10 to 12 Sunrise members, some part-time, who, like other community employees, receive room, board, and a stipend. So far all marketing for our conference business has been by word of mouth, and we're almost always fully booked. All groups that use our facilities have some resonance with our own spiritual mission: for example, we have hosted Brugh Joy, Claudio Naranjo, Don Campbell, the Naropa Institute, and the Foundation for Community Encouragement, and workshops on the "Sovereign" and "Warrior" roles and other men's movement events. We're proud of our facilities, and proud of the fine people we've attracted to use them!
We are also supportive of the nearly 30 members who work outside Sunrise Ranch, many of whom use skills they previously provided for the community, in the building trades, as teachers, engineers, massage therapists, salespeople, computer consultants, and seminar leaders. Our local economy in this part of Colorado, while growing, is not laden with high-paying jobs. And because of the expenses of room and board (generally $300 to $700 a month, depending upon accommodations), becoming a rent-paying member does not generally work if the outside job pays minimum wage.
Some of our residents who still work for the community also work outside, part-time. This moonlighting is supported. It provides additional income to people living within the relatively modest means of income-sharing economics (most residents employed by the community receive a stipend of $200 to $300 a month, depending upon how long they've been here). Their part-time work also generates a wider connection with new friends.
These new ways of working have taken us into a new frame that has changed how many of us think about community. Change is now a more regularly accepted feature of our lives together.
We still work to find the balance between the numbers needed to sustain the large physical plant operation of our community and those needed to assist in its financial support through paying rent. We are still trying to balance the staff hours needed to care for our retreat and workshop business with keeping a wholesome equilibrium in our lives--the significant feature that drew many of us into community in the first place. One solution has been to hire non-residents to assist where community help is not generally available. We don't have to do everything!
We have also wrestled with how we might care for the needs of our seniors in ways that honor their years of service to the community. A solution that looks promising is our new "senior co-op," in which seniors and several other longtime residents jointly decide how they will handle the changing needs of each elder, on a case-by-case basis.
In any case, economics--the generation of funds needed to do all that is ours to do--is a topic not likely to shrink from a primary place in our considerations together. So far our story has no conclusion. If anything, we see more unknown and more transition ahead. We often use the metaphor that we're "in the whitewater"--the most dangerous, yet the most exciting, part of the river trip. We are in the midst of discussions on accountability (what is a full-time workload?), resident agreements (what are appropriate behavioral and social norms for our community?), and issues of managing our workload with the people we have. The jury is still out as to the extent of financial impact that rent-paying members will have on our overall revenue needs. Can we afford (socially and financially) to allow everyone who wants to pursue outside work and pay rent to do so? How will the community be cared for? Who will decide? And, the members who own their own businesses face the same difficulties that any beginning enterprise would face: so far we seem to be adapting to the challenge.
While our decision making now involves the participation of all concerned, we are not egalitarian in the sense that all personal assets of residents are contributed to the whole community, and so naturally, some members have more money, or earn more money, than others. Does that produce envy? Sometimes. But inherent in our living together is the view that each individual is responsible for his or her world and that any attitude that interferes with our clear relationship needs to be personally dealt with, not secretly blamed on anyone else. Our first 50 years were exciting and full of adventure. It will be interesting to see what the next 50 bring.
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