Filed under: Community Building
As Grimwell mentioned on his esteemed blog, we did indeed get together this weekend for some board game fun. It was a grand time. We played games until well after midnight and I am pretty sure they continued after we left. What Grimwell failed to mention is that I stayed up, for all but 2 hours the night prior, preparing food for our gathering. I was up pretty much all night cooking pulled pork on my Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker. I started the pork shoulder at midnight and at 8AM added 3 racks of ribs, all of which I smoked to near perfection (okay not even close but they were good) with passion, spice and patience. But I digress.
Recently, during a trip to the Bay Area, I was introduced to the fun of smoking BBQ. My brother treated us to a variety smokey BBQ goodness over the weekend and stirred my passion for good BBQ. After returning, my Wife and I decided to invest in a smoker of our own. I did some research on the old interweb thingy and decided on a Weber Smoky Mountain Cooker.
Now here is where I get to the point of my rambling, I chose this smoker not for its value, nor its rave reviews (which it actually has a few). I chose this smoker because of its community.
As I visited store page after store page and perused the listings of endless smokers, I stumbled across a little gem of a website, tucked away amongst all the retail and marketing links you inevitably find. I found The Virtual Weber Bullet. A fan site of the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker, complete with forums, how to videos even links to items for the smoker discounted at Amazon.com. I dove into their forums, reading everything from recipes, to critiques, competitions and gatherings and even a New Smoker welcome forum with tips. I quickly became a fan.
Working with communities, I am used to seeing communities pop up over all kinds of similar interests and yet still I am often surprised to find little communities nestled away in relative obscurity. Anytime some folks get together with a common interest, it can grow into a community.
I often hear colleagues say that Community Relations professionals build communities. I disagree, communities build themselves. Passionate people coming together form communities. Passion, spice and patience help to grow them. Often we simply need to stay out of the way.
Damn the ribs and pulled pork were good. You should have mentioned them Grimwell. I stayed up all freaking night smoking them for you. =) But I will make sure to give him lots of crap in person, the next time our little community gets together to play games.
