About us
Are you a working professional? Are you thinking of making friends and extend your social circle by going volunteering, learning things, or doing good together? You are looking at the right place.
If you dig deeper, you will find us actually a social org :). For volunteers, community builders of working professionals.
The things we do are very simple, meaningful things in beautiful settings, so connections happen naturally, from shared purpose and experience.
Friendship through civic engagements and shared learnings. That is us - an aspiring volunteer & builder community that runs events.
Send us your new in towns, the young professionals, the transplants, the job seekers, the singles, all those that could use new connections.
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Under the hood, we are actually a volunteer-boned, community-builder-muscled social ecosystem.
You take actions to improve your own situation, that is a builder. You willingly impact others with your actions, that is a "social" volunteer. Simple like that.
Two things set us apart from simply another meetup group: We do more productive social, vs consuming type; we do stateful social, vs the often observed stateless ones. For builders at least.
Volunteering is where we come from, it is also a format we do team building. By all the social formats we have observed so far, group volunteering is the most effective and efficient way to build bonding, aka trust, among people.
By group volunteering, we mean those that facilitates social, like in festivals, in state or local parks etc.. Not the punishment type handed down by traffic court.
Attention is the currency of meetups. We organize community social as our service, to build up our own community, yet it isn't free. We try to match the attention economy to people's contributions or efforts, so making it more fair.
We believe in people's self determination, we also believe in community builders' group collective power, as well as volunteers' active engagement in changing the social context.
We root our activities in local community events, we cooperate with orgs, businesses and individuals that are doing good. We provide social ladder roles that people can try, stages they shine on, resolving their social needs, also bringing others along.
We participate local community events, as attendees, as volunteers, civic, outdoor, professional or more. We organize local regional social infra walks, so to receive people incoming, so they can launch their social life again.
We build up connections, and create belongings. We believe all good deeds should be rewarded, in relationship, if not in finance. We believe in stateful social, thus relationship compounds, thus community.
We started as festival volunteers wanting social, and expanded to organizing social in community events, our current mission is to be the receiving end of local community social. We believe people & social skills can be picked up, as we did. So no charisma required to participate, help yourself, then others. Warm heart, willingness to try, will do.
If you have read so far, you may seriously consider trying it out with us, and join this fellow community of builders. We are exploring, and learning, from our mistakes, which are often, and successes, which did happen at times :). A lot of people make complaints, some take actions. The result of social roulette can be changed, as we are doing. So why wouldn't you join us, to fail on the action side? Ha.
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And our goal? A gateway to local community social, a connection layer to community events, a student activity center for post-college life, a social engine for connections, a town square for working professionals, a social neighborhoods dotted by community builders. Yes, some kind of salt.
Build with us, then socials would follow.
At the end of day,
Visit us at: https://www.townflame.org
Upcoming events
13
Oktoberfest Volunteering Social Reconnaissance -- Redwood City
Courthouse Square, 2200 Broadway, Redwood City, CA, USRedwood city has Oktoberfest for 9 days, including 2 weekends. Sep 18-27th.
https://www.redwoodcity.org/residents/redwood-city-events/oktoberfestVolunteers get free entry, T-shirt etc.
Volunteer sign up:
https://signup.com/client/invitation2/secure/68245940400/false#/invitationWe contacted the organizer, they put a strict limit as to what session volunteers can go. You are only allowed for the shift that you volunteer for, so if your shift is on Morning, you are not allowed to visit in the afternoon. This makes socializing limited to the shifts you sign up.
So we plan to be there on the 26th Sat. to check it out, the noon shift, 11am-4pm. We can find a place to have a coffee chat /dinner together afterwards. If you volunteered for other shift and also want to meal chat together, you are welcome to join us.
It is also OK that you sign up for other shifts, then we could meet again afterwards, in the volunteer appreciation dinner (if there is one) or like. So we can have some volunteers' social.
The idea is that we want to expand our Golden Hour Friday evening community walk idea to Redwood city and above also, with volunteers leading the walk in pairs, building a local social neighborhood infra. So to meet more people, regularly and low effort, expanding our own network also. It is a different kind of social we have been doing, the builder's. We can chat about that if you are interested.
Join TownFlame, Make Life Happen.
Liability Waiver: Participation in TownFlame events is voluntary and involves social interaction in public spaces. Activities are designed to be inclusive and respectful. Participants assume all risks and release TownFlame, its organizers, volunteers, and affiliates from liability for injury, illness, or damages, except in cases of gross negligence or intentional misconduct.
By attending, participants acknowledge that photographs, audio, and video recordings may be taken during events, and grant TownFlame the right to use such media for promotional and marketing purposes, in any format or platform, without further consent or compensation.
8 attendees
Volunteers Social Catch-Ups -- Golden Hour over Shoreline Lake, Mountain View
Shoreline Lake Boathouse, 3160 N Shoreline Blvd, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA, Mountain View, CA, USSo we just did probably our biggest group volunteering so far, in Mountain VIew's Art & Wine festival, with close to 50 sign ups. We each served in our own shift, haven't got much chance to see or say hello to each other.
And before that, we also did the volunteering with Grassroots Ecologies, with State Parks, with local and SF festivals, in gardens & kitchens, on beaches & trails, with our sister orgs like VOCAL etc..
By volunteers, we also intend to include all those that have volunteered in those places, not necessarily with us. Also our hosts and all those that helped in our events. Invite your shift mates, and other volunteer friends you know, including to-bes.
It looks Oct. would be another big group volunteering season, with several Oktoberfests, Harvest festivals etc.. Before that, let's find a lull time to meet each other first, see who is who, exchange anecdotes we saw in the festivals, may try out different venues we each chanced upon, or other social occasions. We volunteer to socialize with each other, so here it is.
Of course being people with community hearts, enjoy the camaraderie from volunteering together isn't the only thing we have in mind. By observing what happened in the golden hour walk dinner and the social mixer happened around the festival, we came up a few interesting ways as to how to maximize people's participation in events, and keep the good-will generated in an event in continuity.
Who else would make better people to try out these ideas that may benefit future people? Of course it is our volunteers :).
We also notice our Golden Hour walk format is catching on. Our goal on it is to create social neighborhoods, so interested people can attend similar events in towns around, once a week in rotation. So we plan to do some mini-hosting role playing in the event, you can come to try it out if interested, and lead walks in the future. Great chance to meet your social neighbors.
Location: Shoreline Lake Boathouse, Mountain View
Date: Sep 26th Sat.
5 - 5:15pm Meet & Greet
5:15 - 5:30 Explain the new tricks we have in mind, people trying out.
5:30 - 6:30 Role playing in the walk by the lake.
6:30 - 7:30 Back at the lake house, group coffee, social,
Review and improve, make plans, enjoy the sunset over the lake.Join TownFlame, Make Life Happen.
Liability Waiver: Participation in TownFlame events is voluntary and involves social interaction in public spaces. Activities are designed to be inclusive and respectful. Participants assume all risks and release TownFlame, its organizers, volunteers, and affiliates from liability for injury, illness, or damages, except in cases of gross negligence or intentional misconduct.
By attending, participants acknowledge that photographs, audio, and video recordings may be taken during events, and grant TownFlame the right to use such media for promotional and marketing purposes, in any format or platform, without further consent or compensation.
9 attendees
Adventure SF -- Cracking Folsom Street Fair
Sightglass Coffee, 270 7th St, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA, San Francisco, CA, USHistory walk • Group volunteering • Explore one of San Francisco's most unconventional festivals
You may have heard of SF's famous Folsom Street Fair, or you may have wanted to check it out one day but never made it. Here is a chance to do so, with a group, with an official role in the festival.
Folsom Street Fair is a unique SF culture adventure experience, as weird as SF can get. It is the world's largest leather and kink event, having 250k to half a million visitors every year. Fairly dense in one day. Definitely 18+ adult theme.
https://www.folsomstreet.org/Its volunteer organizer is turnout.org, which we have cooperated in the Pride parade before. So we will do a history tour of the festival, then attend the festival as volunteers.
The recommended shifts are:
Safety Team Support 2-5pm
There are also other shifts, like volunteer sign in, floaters, hospitality etc., you can check them out and sign up at below. Yes, you must sign up there to attend the group volunteering.
https://turnoutinc.volunteerlocal.com/volunteer/?id=90549The role of safety team support is to walk the festival ground in pairs or groups, under the instruction of the safety team. So you get this official role to wander the ground, watch all the actions, while doing good, as part of the festival organizing body.
We think group volunteering after a history tour is the right way to crack this niche festival of SF. Of course the volunteering part is optional, you are also free to attend it as simply spectators.
## The day
12:00 — Sightglass Coffee, 270 7th St. Coffee, introductions. Two floors, plenty of room, just outside the closure.
12:30 — Step off.
12:45 — Ringold Alley. One block south of Folsom, between 8th and 9th. It's a registered historical landmark and a public memorial to the leather community — bronze bootprints and granite markers set into the pavement, names of people who built this neighborhood. Almost nobody walking to the fair knows it's there. We're stopping here first on purpose: it makes today a history instead of a spectacle.
1:00 — West along Harrison. One block parallel to the fair. You'll hear it for fifteen minutes before you see it. This is the stretch where our Friend Circle happens, so you go into your shift knowing the people you're working beside.
1:15 — Eagle Plaza, 398 12th St. The public plaza built for the leather community next to the SF Eagle, with bronze stars set into the walkway and the leather pride flag overhead. Last stop.
1:25 — Volunteer HQ. Check in, badge, coat check, grab something from the hospitality tent. They ask Folsom volunteers to arrive early because you have to cross the fair to get there.
2:00 — Shift starts.
~5:30/6:00 — Shift ends. Back to HQ, food, and we regroup there.
6:30pm Optional group coffee/dinnerFolsom Street is a nonprofit that has given away more than $7 million to community organizations since 1984, almost entirely on the backs of volunteers. That's the machine we're spending an afternoon inside of.
See you at Sightglass.
Image credit: https://www.becksmotorlodge.com/events/folsom-street-fair
Join TownFlame, Make Life Happen.
Liability Waiver: Participation in TownFlame events is voluntary and involves social interaction in public spaces. Activities are designed to be inclusive and respectful. Participants assume all risks and release TownFlame, its organizers, volunteers, and affiliates from liability for injury, illness, or damages, except in cases of gross negligence or intentional misconduct.
By attending, participants acknowledge that photographs, audio, and video recordings may be taken during events, and grant TownFlame the right to use such media for promotional and marketing purposes, in any format or platform, without further consent or compensation.
22 attendees
Past events
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