{
  "kind": "route",
  "format": "kosplora-route/0.1",
  "question": "What makes a recurring gathering outlive its founder?",
  "move": [
    "understand",
    "organize"
  ],
  "audience": "For anyone who hosts something, or wants to stop being indispensable to it.",
  "time": {
    "solo": "2h30m",
    "together": "60m"
  },
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Bentley",
      "date": "2026-08-18"
    }
  ],
  "would_change": "A gathering that has survived two founder departures with no written agreements and no informal center of power would weaken station 1's premise; the route would take it in as a study case rather than argue around it.",
  "conditions": {
    "asks": [
      "time",
      "energy",
      "social"
    ],
    "note": "Filled in the walker, kept on your device, expires with the route."
  },
  "stations": [
    {
      "type": "orient",
      "time": "35m",
      "task": "Read the classic argument that groups without formal structure still have structure, just hidden and unaccountable.",
      "sources": [
        {
          "title": "The Tyranny of Structurelessness",
          "author": "Jo Freeman",
          "date": "1972",
          "url": "https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm",
          "origin": "published"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "type": "source",
      "time": "40m",
      "task": "Read the design principles drawn from commons that lasted centuries, and mark the three that could apply to a weekly gathering.",
      "sources": [
        {
          "title": "Governing the Commons, the design principles for long-enduring institutions",
          "author": "Elinor Ostrom",
          "date": "1990",
          "origin": "published"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "type": "person",
      "time": "40m",
      "task": "Speak with someone who has hosted a recurring gathering for two years or more, and with someone who let one end. Ask both what was never written down."
    },
    {
      "type": "counterpoint",
      "time": "20m",
      "task": "State the strongest case that writing the structure down would kill what makes the gathering worth attending.",
      "sources": [
        {
          "title": "The Utopia of Rules",
          "author": "David Graeber",
          "date": "2015",
          "origin": "published"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "type": "make",
      "time": "45m",
      "template": "continuity-plan",
      "task": "Write a one-page continuity plan for a real gathering: what is actually agreed, who else can host, what money or space depends on one person, and what would dissolve it on purpose rather than by neglect."
    },
    {
      "type": "reflect",
      "time": "15m",
      "task": "Show the plan to one regular attendee. Record what they corrected and what stays unresolved."
    }
  ],
  "artifact": {
    "template": "continuity-plan",
    "keeps": "A one-page continuity plan the gathering can adopt, amend, or refuse."
  },
  "exit": [
    "keep",
    "share",
    "fork",
    "teach",
    "correct-a-source",
    "close"
  ],
  "revisions": [
    {
      "date": "2026-08-18",
      "change": "First version.",
      "by": "Bentley"
    }
  ]
}