Joining The Universe

The Universe welcomes new members and is always open to inviting people to join us at events.

Here’s how to add someone to the camp:

Someone who has camped with The Universe before must recommend that we invite the new person. The recommender (or someone else who has camped with The Universe before) should explain to the new person what our camp is all about so they understand what they are asking to join.

Recommending a new member should be in the form of an email to the discussion list. The person doing the recommending should know the new person well enough to believe that they will be a good fit for the camp; it can be helpful to explain briefly why the new person would be a good fit.

From the time of that email, existing campers have 24 hours to raise any concerns with inviting the new person to join the camp. Concerns can be raised either to the list or to the recommender, either by the objector themselves or by proxy.

If no one raises a serious concern (i.e. “I think we should not invite this person”) after 24 hours, a current camp member (not necessarily the person who made the recommendation) should invite the new person to join the camp and ask them to subscribe to theuniverse@ and theuniverse-announce@ mailing lists. The person doing the inviting should encourage the new person to write an introductory email to theuniverse@ list.

If a serious concern is raised, then the person will not be invited. A current camp member should inform them that an existing camp member has objected to inviting them.

We ask that all camp members follow two principles. These are our only membership requirements – we don't have monetary dues, mandatory meetings, or anything else like that:

1. Do your best to contribute to making the events that we attend happen, and to make others feel welcomed, inspired, safe, and comfortable both in our camp and in the wider event.
2. Do your best to contribute to making our camp work, and making it awesome. Share your time, resources, and skills as you are able, and take opportunities to collaborate, teach, learn, and grow.