Joining the FEC

Why Join the FEC?

Becoming an FEC Community has many benefits for your community and its members!

All FEC Communities are given instant access to PEACH, our catastrophic health care fund. Members may also engage in our Labor Exchange program, called LEX. The FEC also provides support for recruitment and outreach for your community, among many other projects and programs. And by becoming a member of the FEC, your community joins a group of like minded yet diverse communities that work together to try to make a better world.

 The first step in becoming an FEC Community is to contact the FEC Secretary: [email protected].  The FEC Secretary is responsible for guiding you through the process, or connecting you with a delegate from another community to do so.

There are six things that we expect in from a community before applying for full membership in the FEC.

  • A member of your community completes a questionnaire, and sends out written information that you have about your community, such as bylaws, behavioral norms, membership criteria, outreach material...  This is to get an idea of your community: a way for many communards across our communities to hear about you and know that your community exists, and so that delegates can see how close (or far) you are from potential full membership in the FEC.  You'll fill out the same questionnaire when you want to apply for full membership in the FEC, whenever that is.
  • The members of your community make some kind of collective binding agreement, with a defined process for changing that agreement, that represents a written affirmation of the FEC's seven basic principles.
  • A representative requests for your community to officially become a Community-in-Dialogue with the FEC, at least one year before applying for full membership in the FEC.
  • Members of your community develop and maintain an active relationship with the FEC or at least one FEC community by attending monthly conference calls, visiting other communities or doing labor exchange, written communication, attendance at our annual assembly, conferences attended or hosted by other FEC communities, or other forms of sharing.
  • One or more delegates chosen by your community attends annual assemblies of the FEC.  A community can apply for membership in the FEC during the second assembly to which they send delegates.
  • A representative of the FEC designated by the delegates visits your community, and co writes a report to the FEC and its member communities about your community and your adherence to FEC values.  The site visit is usually written with an introduction describing your community and the person's basic experience, and then addresses each of the FEC's 7 basic principles and criteria agreed upon for full membership.

Consensus of the existing FEC communities is necessary to accept a new community, both as a Community-in-Dialogue and as a full member community in the FEC.

For your community to become a full member in the FEC, delegates will evaluate your community on the basis of these requirements and criteria.  Once accepted the new community is granted full member rights and privileges from that point on.