Change is good! Except when it's not.
Alex Hillman
This essay was originally published in the Indy Hall newsletter. If you’re not already subscribed, you can sign up here.
Last week we wrapped our third season of Track Meet, a fun and friendly game that’s turned into a new ritual for a cluster of Indy Hall members.
Once a week across a 5-week season, players get a new prompt:
- “What song sounds exactly like a Tuesday?”
- “What song do you wish you could hear again for the very first time?”
- “What’s the best song about, set in, or that mentions Philly?”
(If you’ve played Music League, this is similar — with a few tweaks and YouTube as the music source for people who aren’t on Spotify.)
Players have a few days to decide and submit a song. Then players have a few days to spread out their points across the submissions. Winners are crowned by points each round, a total points winner for the season, and some superlatives.
It’s simple, it’s fun, and open to any member who wants to play!
It’s also a fun example of a ritual that helps glue a community like ours together — and it got me thinking about rituals and invitations.
Seasons Change
Now that we’ve worked most of the bugs out, Season 3 was the first time we tried experimenting a bit.
We tried a different voting structure. I also tried a few harder, more abstract themes — “What’s the perfect beat to relax and study?” “What song has the most satisfying key change?”
Some of these experiments went better than others.
A few of us — myself included — were enthusiastic about trying Rank Choice Voting. It’s something we want to see in our democratic process, and a low-stakes chance to try it firsthand seemed like a great idea. But in practice, the way we translated rank choice into scoring created confusion, and our relatively small voting pool didn’t really get to see the benefits.
The harder themes created selection pressure. Participation dropped. Folks shared that they felt like they needed to do more research than they bargained for. Even voting was harder when the themes were more abstract.
I’m glad we experimented. We may return to some of these ideas in the future!
But for now, I’m sitting with the lesson: if we’re going to experiment, focus on the invitation.
In Community, Everything is an Invitation
The mechanics are solid. The ritual is established. Change can be valuable and worthwhile, but what we change matters.
Rituals work because they’re consistent and accessible. The urge to tinker with the mechanics is natural. You want to grow things, improve them, keep them fresh. But the things that make a ritual stick are usually the very things you’re tempted to change.
So with Season 4, we’re focused on adding more ways to participate. While all of the themes to date came from member ideas, I’ve been the self-designated “commissioner” picking themes.
This next season, I’m turning over the reins to Victoria Adams — and I hope all future seasons become curated by active players of previous seasons. I’m also reviewing our superlatives to add new awards that reward consistently showing up.
If you’re a member, consider joining by checking out the #track-meet channel in Discord. Or send me a note and I’ll send you a direct link to join our members-only league.
The Rituals Around Us
Track Meet is unique in that it’s entirely online and asynchronous, making it one of the most accessible ways to do stuff with members.
But Indy Hall has many more recurring touchpoints than most people realize, both in person and online!
Structured (specific time and place — easy to know how to join):
- Reading Club — 2nd and 4th Wednesdays; bring a book, bring your focus, or just bring yourself
- First Friday PWYW Coworking — every First Friday, a free coworking day for registered members and discounted day for guests. Think of it like an Indy Hall “sampler” day.
- Happy Hours — Every Friday, just past the 5pm hour, members gather in the kitchen to share a round of toasts to the week gone by and the weekend ahead. Alcohol not required!
- Game Night — twice monthly on 1st and 3rd Wednesday, competitive or curious!
- Project Coworking Night — Also on 1st and 3rd Wednesdays. Bring a project you’re working on and get some stuff done after hours.
- Breakfast Club — Monday mornings; food, a discussion question to start the week, good company before work begins.
Semi-structured (happening when people show up):
- Zoom Coffee Chats — a long-running online ritual that brings a bit of morning serendipity to remote members and regulars
- Lunch in the kitchen or on the rooftop
- The conversations that start while waiting for the coffee to brew
Some of these are easier to join because they happen at a specific time and place. The structure lowers the question of how — but sometimes it can also feel like a higher bar to clear.
Others are more ad-hoc, kept alive by the fact that Indy Hall’s spaces, physical and digital, make them more likely to happen.
Both kinds matter. Both are open to you.
The door is always open for a new player or participant.
More seasons to come.
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