What aspects of the vampire community do you believe
need the most improvement?
This is not something I can zero down to one single
thing because there is
much in the community that could use work.
One of the things I have seen with my own eyes in several
different
organizations is a lack of maturity among the members (and in
some
cases Elders). I find there are still a lot of people out there
who
conduct themselves like spoilt children when dealing with the
very
people they are supposed to be representing. Be it people who
shoot
down people who don't agree with them or people who ignore the
existence of people who they cannot benefit from in some way. Also
there
are a great many elders out there who regard the title of elder
as being a
status symbol rather than a responsibility. I have been
working in this
community for quite a while and when I started using
the title "Elder" I did
not bestow it upon myself. Some people (and
I'm not going to point fingers or
name names) need to get back in
touch with the fact that we are here for the
community. Every one of
us not just the Elders. We are all brothers and
sisters. We are all
kindred. And as such we all help each other. We (none of
us) can
afford to hold our breath and turn blue just because we don't
get
things our way.
The other thing that I feel we need to concentrate on is the
discrepancy
between online organizations and offline organizations. A
great many
organizations out there only exist online. This is fine as
far as it goes but
it takes away a great deal of the personal touch,
which wins trust and
respect. In a naturally reticent community it is
difficult to establish
trust with people at the best of times and in
this respect I see the value
of working with people offline, in the
community, as being inestimable. The
internet is a great tool for
bringing people together over long distances
and this is an excellent
thing, but I feel that it is only a starting point
not an ultimate
solution. Once people have made contact online, it then opens
the
door to get to know people personally at some point. We can
not
afford to move everything online and neglect the age old (not to
mention tried and true) method of getting out there, shaking hands
and
meeting and greeting the people who make up the community of
which we are a
part.
Saladin