Unearthed Waterhole Vessel

When working out a name for this new vessel, I found some beautiful serendipitous moments that connected my life to my practise as one.

By Frank Weil, Chairman of The Intersector Project, https://intersector.com/

What can a watering hole teach us about the intersector — the notional space where government, business, and non-profit sectors share expertise, resources, and authority to address problems that cannot be solved by one sector alone?

In a way, the intersector is a watering hole.

To illustrate what that might mean, consider Robert Putnam’s study of regional governments in Italy during the 1970s. During his investigations, Putnam discovered that quality governance was related to, of all things, the number of choral societies in a region. What is it about singers that could so dramatically improve the quality of life in their communities?

Choral societies brought together many different kinds of community members who had very little in common other than their shared interest in singing. Ultimately, Putnam realised that it was not the singing that made a difference. It was the fact that after these people came together to sing, they would gather to gossip about local issues and to form trusting relationships in the process with people they probably never would have otherwise met. When problems arose in their local communities, lines of communication were already in place to facilitate finding solutions.

Choral societies are a type of watering hole, just as today’s Rotary clubs, Kiwanis clubs, book clubs, and more are watering holes — places for individuals from different walks of life — “animals of different stripes” — to meet and connect over commonalities and to build the type of mutual understanding that enables individuals to understand and want to work together.

One of the basic ideas behind intersector is that it’s a space where individuals who come from different backgrounds can exchange ideas to produce better solutions. The watering hole is a naturally occurring phenomenon — both in the animal and human world — that shows that when united by a common desire or interest, people who are unlike will come together and form the trusting relationships that are the first critical step in intersector collaboration.

I have sung in a local choir for nearly 10 years now, and to sum that up would be to say that it absolutely grounds me, so this is pretty darn perfect, I think!