If we look at CISV today we can split our members into a few buckets:
- "Participants" (primarily aged under 21), participating in our international programmes, as well as Mosaic (when hosted for CISVers[*]).
- "Leaders", mix of previous participants as well as those joining CISV as adults. Participates as Leaders, Staff, IPP Participants.
- "Parents", typically parents of the Participants, or those Leaders that have been in CISV since being kids. Typically gives administrative/practical support when hosting programmes.

[*] Some Mosaics are generally arranged by CISVers, but participants are not.

"Old" CISV is/was fine-tuned. Participants came with Parents, and together with a few (rather) inexperienced Leaders you could put together a camp based programme. How to do it you get via inherited local check-lists, guides etc. Interchange is similar. This is what I call the instant-soup effect. The mix requires very little "creativity", and has few external dependencies. (Camp-site being the only one.)

Mosaic (and IPP) do not have these benefits. The balance is shifted towards having highly motivated, creative and experienced Leaders. This is probably the group in CISV that we are in shortage of. Unless it is camp-based there is fairly little for the Parents group to do. Depending on the type of activity a Mosaic also does not bring in any new Participants, even reducing the incentive - no kids today, no leaders tomorrow. As a Mosaic is something unique, with heavier exernal dependencies, there is also a higher risk of failure (e.g. that the partner org. pulls out.)

If I look at Norway - many chapters do not have an abundant supply of Leaders, maybe there are no higher-education institutions near-by. The chapters are typically Parent driven, and when the parents ask themselves "what can I do" their conclusion is "I can run a camp as long as I get 3-4 staff". Staff which does not have to do a lot of work before or after the camp if they get the necessary amount of Parent support. Quite easy to find.

To me it leaves Mosaic as a supportive programme to keep motivated, creative and experienced Leaders around. There are a lot of CISVers that want to do more than just doing the basic camps, that want to stretch themselves beyond doing a village every year, and we do need something for them. Consider it the graduate programme of CISV, but I cannot see how this should become the mainstay of CISV. How many people have been recruited to CISV purely based on Mosaic? (Participants, Leaders or Parents.)

With that I think that CISV as such still will remain focused around our international camps, simply as it is what we do best, and because it is what makes us special. It is what gives us most "bang for the buck".

I think that the the focus on certain programmes or the success of future programmes will come from the chapters, as it always has. Look at Summer Camp and YM - they have grown by 50% in the past few years because of the will of the chapters to host more. (According to last year's hosting plan, Mosaic has also pretty much doubled their hosting from 2006 to 2010) If CISV International were to focus on the educational similarities of some programmes and how one can strengthen another, some programmes will naturally grow more than others because of what the chapters want. This might be - as you say the camp based programmes. It also might be Mosaic or IPP.

I do think that the different programmes of CISV are so fundamentally different in many ways, that we are really still trying to find a common ground (check my post on tasks for the new educational officer and also the one called CISV in Limbo).

On the other hand, if you have a reasonably sized chapter, let's take Lisbon, and you are able to host all the programmes including Mosaic every years, than you really reap the benefits: Participants will be able to go through a whole CISV career, there's something for everyone*s taste, and there's surely more self-potentiation as the different programmes complement each other.

But for this you need critical mass, and I'd guess that 90% of chapters worldwide don't reach it.

The instant-soup-aspect, Lars mentions, is precisely something that I think makes the classic CISV programmes attractive for most of the bunch of volunteers. For those bored, there's Mosaic and IPP.

oh oh...I'm drifting far away from the original topic of this artcile. Sorry.

Nick: I think having a hetereogeneous organization is the only thing natural. In some cultures Interchange is not doable, for others a Youth Meeting is too short and too far away, for other again a Mosaic does not fit what they do.

I would even question our ability to influence the chapters. If what we want to do is to push all chapters to do Mosaic we currently lack both the carrot and the stick. No direct benefits, i.e. hosting points, nor direct penalties if you simply ignore the entire programme, means that our normally very resourceful chapters will look elsewhere.

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To reach some sort of consensus on who we are and do/should do/want to do we need a balanced view of all of our programmes. Lately we (the CISV International "crowd") have focused almost solely on Mosaic, IPP, Junior Branch and Chapters (to copy what says on the back page of Activate). One example is that all other printed publications have been cancelled in favour of Activate, which only covers 2 out of 7 programmes.

To me this looks like some strange sense of denial - "we" want to do local activities that change communities to show real impact, rather than the abstract, closed and by now a bit boring camp and exchange programmes.

From a CISV educational point of view this is the difference between 'abstract' learning in an educational institution vs. hands-on experience. My view is that without the 'abstract' learning experiences we also don't have a lot bring to the table when it comes to the hands-on experiences.

Activate does not come to be at the expense of other publications. As far as I know Interspectives (CISV's former research publication) and CISV News (a former online newsletter) were let go due to lack of content. Meanwhile, the Annual Review still gets published each year; and if you want a publication that "covers it all", you will find it there. Activate was not a wide spotlight that has become narrower. It's exactly the opposite.

But in terms of publications and profile, I think you've hit the challenge on the nose, Lars: our camps and exchange programmes are harder to tell compelling stories about. Their stories are too familiar (and thus uninteresting) to internal audiences, and too hard to communicate to external ones. This comes back to the question of which set of programmes tend more toward an insular image.

I'm not saying that camp and exchange programmes shouldn't be the focus of publications and profile raising--I actually think there is real potential there. But some work needs to be done by those programmes' disciples to figure out how to communicate those stories effectively. ;)

I have planned and conducted my "own" mosaic project (http://mosaic.cisv.org/stories/entries/blog_0045.html) with a group of Lars' Leaders (experienced CISVers), a group of exprienced non-CISV Leaders and a bunch of definitely-not-CISVish participants aged 13 to 17. I think that the 14 days of the main phase of the project have been the roughest, most challenging, most interesting and most educational (for myself) days I ever spent in a CISV-based environment. I further think that this project could not have been possible if it wasn't for a staff that a.) didn't want to do "another Village" and b.) was a bit "outside" its chapter, free to plan on our own and pretty much do whatever we like.

The mosaic project didn't help the chapter at all, and probably didn't help CISV Austria as a whole either - it was just something we did for ourselves (huh, very altruistic!), because we wanted to walk out of CISV's programme box and into the local community.

And maybe this is what chapters should look for - people who are tired of the pony song, flag time and camp meeting, and who would like a new challenge; with support from the chapter, but with enough freedom to make the project actually theirs. Mosaic - more than any other programme - allows for a dedicated, reasonable commitment with self-imposed limits and a lot of creativity within the context of CISV's educational goals; and even though no direct benefits for the chapter or the NA may be measured, it at least continues a tradition of all our other programmes - for no one ever measured how much World Peace has increased since the Village programme either.

i hear the argument that for every social cause there is an organization doing projects already, so how are you supposed to come up with something original. which is true. and again shows that we're not promoting what we as cisv offer especially (rather than other organizations) in this programme - a place to not just serve any social cause which you can do anywhere. but a platform and network and support to create your own project to change something in your world!
what i'm thinking is that mosaic isn't promoted in the way that it could reach it's potential. at least in germany and i'm also taking responsibility in this, as i only realized this now and not a year and a half ago. my point is - mosaic compared to other things in cisv is maybe more like the jb. a place for self-development, making your own ideas come true in the frame of a network that you are already connected to but not purely inside it. and obviously also of learning by doing. and it is true that with this we're not reaching everyone or the average maybe, but this is something for people who want more. and why shouldn't we also promote it in this way? for the people who are committed and want to get more out of it than "regular program".
and i think by making it attractive to be an "alumni"/"graduate" we can have more people involved longer, without them needing to "enter" through jb. ... i don't know is this utiopian?
i think it could really support the "old chapters" to embrace the "new".

I would emphasize frequency. If you use twitter, a blog, FB or whatever the importance needs to be frequency - and photos. It is more important to get comments out there than to write long essays. Maybe combined with longer FTB-style posts in between.And pics are always fun.

Bastian

"I move to have CISV FTB present at AIMs reporting and putting critical commentaries online during the meetings."

There, you got it. Hehe.

Not sure if this would replace the need for having a pyramid - unless we simply ditch the NAs and say that all chapters connect directly to internationa - but for information sharing and collaboration I think it would be worthwhile.

L.

Replacing the pyramid would probably be one step to far (although I think it could e tried and would probably go very far), but I guess it would be reasonable to have it as an alternative structure, that could take over some tasks in the long run