I think people are less interested in joining organisations and participating in structured events than they probably used to be.

I think you have hit the nail on the head there, Radio.

The question then is what should our response be to this shift in attitudes.

To not have any congresses at all or to wind up the national associations would seem to me to be a too drastic response. There is surely something of value in these institutions.

So the issue is how to redefine the roles of the Esperanto congress and the national associations to be more in tune with the times.

This leads to the questions like:

What do these institutions do well?
What do they do badly?
What should they be doing?
How should their success be measured?

sudanglo:In the Internet age, is the idea of the Esperanto Congress old-fashioned, past its sell-by-date?

I ask because, not only is there not much sign of growth in the attendance at Esperanto Congresses generally, but because I found it very striking that at the recent Congress in Ramsgate, there was a noticeable absence of new faces.

My interpretation is, that the "official" congresses are constantly fading. By official congresses I mean congresses, that claim to be "the congress", like UK, congresses of the national Eo-associtations.

Memberships in Eo-associations are declining constantly and so are the attendences in those official congresses.

What is increasing is the number and the attendence of smaller non-official or regional congresses. Meetups like the Oranĝa Renkontiĝo in Sweden are coming up and growing.

The internet is making the network of Esperanto speakers more efficient and so huge "official" congresses and also "official" organizations are not that needed any more.

So nowadays it's more up to smaller groups or individuals to set up innovative and individual meet ups, that fit the wishes of individual Esperanto speakers.

Another example was the MELA renkontiĝo. It was small international group of esperanto speaking friends who were meeting up near a lake somwhere in Hungary for a week to have a good time. This happend over years. People would just come and join.

Regarding the questions of Sudangulo:

What do these institutions do well?
What do they do badly?
What should they be doing?
How should their success be measured?

This discussion is coming up regularly in UK.

My answer is that they are well on collecting money of their members, be it membership payments or heritage. They are bad on actually using this money for something else than administrating themselfs. We had this discussion during UK in Havanna, that UEA is literally refusing to use the money they get for anything like, say, educational projects.

What should they be doing? Well, I don't actually mind, because the fact that they are not doing it or doing it badly doesn't mean that there is some lack. There are other organizations like E@I who are doing things like lernu! and SES. And there doing it well. There are individuals who are doing things like Muzaiko and Vinilkosmo. And they are doing it well.

The diclining memberships and attendances of traditional organizations and congresses are just phenomena that show that the need of those organizations and congresses is fading away.

I've never been to any Esperanto groups/congresses so I have no idea what they're even like.
I would like to go to an Esperanto "Con" (Convention or Conference); I've enjoyed going to developer, security, and civic duty conferences, and anime/sci-fi conventions - basically, have a lot of panels over interesting topics related to Esperanto or otherwise, have ... um, merch to sell... (everyone loves trinkets), and have events.

Esperanto events usually have a book service but it's nothing like a convention floor with booths selling stuff.

Large events are usually a mix of talks on various topics (not necessarily relating to Esperanto but always IN Esperanto) and organizational meetings for the organization's leadership and board, who may meet in person only once per year. The Universala Kongreso has a ton of these kinds of meetings, lots of Esperanto organizations use the chance to have their annual board meeting or whatever.

Other events have a heavier focus on fun and tourism. You look like you're in about the right age range for IJK (the main large youth event), which has a lot of fun activities and concerts. UK is a bit boring but I was told you should go at least once in your life, just to see so many Esperanto speakers in one place. It is somewhat cool to be going around the city and randomly encounter Esperanto-speaking groups. I have been to UK once and I will be going again this summer, but I wouldn't be going if not for the fact that I have meetings to attend there.

The European events are fun. I would try to go if you can scrape together the money (and particularly if you go to an event in Eastern Europe, the plane ticket will be your main cost, since housing and food etc are relatively inexpensive there). You see the benefit more when you go abroad, you actually do encounter people who might not speak English, and you meet people from more different places. A US Esperanto event will have some foreigners but it isn't any more diverse, as far as nationality, than, say, a random office in a large metropolitan area. The office where I work is certainly more diverse than most US Esperanto events.

erinja:
Other events have a heavier focus on fun and tourism. You look like you're in about the right age range for IJK (the main large youth event), which has a lot of fun activities and concerts. UK is a bit boring but I was told you should go at least once in your life, just to see so many Esperanto speakers in one place. It is somewhat cool to be going around the city and randomly encounter Esperanto-speaking groups. I have been to UK once and I will be going again this summer, but I wouldn't be going if not for the fact that I have meetings to attend there.

Oh, I'm 25 so I have no idea what age-range youth is.

Sudanglo, how many people did actually attend the Brita Kongreso? It would interesting to see the statistics on the ages etc...

I agree with Erinja, just want to add some aspects.

Yes, UK is or can be boring, if you are not into Esperanto or UEA politics or want to meet the Esperanto "elite". It is true, that on UK you can see all the merited Esperanto stars and actually discuss with them. The participation fee of UK is really high.

Yes, the European youth congresses – which suit perfectly to your age, Moosader – are fun. As for american residents the flight ticket is the main cost, it may be worth while coming for several weeks and attend several events one after another. Usually the organizers are fixing dates of their events so that you can travel from one to the other. Sometimes someone is organizing low cost train rides from one event to the next, that you can join. These rides are called "karavano". They sometimes stay overnight in some city on the way at local esperantists.

Erinja already mentioned the low housing costs en Eastern Europe. Most youth events offer the possibility to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor of a sport hall or in your own tent at really low costs.

I think that this dichotomy of youth/non-youth in Esperantio is a little silly. Most Esperantists whether young or non-young are pretty cool. Hey, in order to be interested in Esperanto you HAVE to be a little nuts - in a good way. There are very, very few nationalists and stuffies in the movado, believe me. One of my favorite Esperantists is 99 y.o. I would like to emulate that - as time goes by. She is interesting and always fun to be with. She lives in Germany. We went to a restaurant when I was there last. She started a conversation with the owner, a lady from Thessaloniki. Wow! She blew the socks off the lady from Thessaloniki just by how much she knew about the town and how much fun she had when she was there. I was fascinated.

robbkvasnak:I think that this dichotomy of youth/non-youth in Esperantio is a little silly. Most Esperantists whether young or non-young are pretty cool. Hey, in order to be interested in Esperanto you HAVE to be a little nuts - in a good way. There are very, very few nationalists and stuffies in the movado, believe me.

[...]

I really would love to agree on that, but I just can't. Unfortunately.

Sure you can meet lots of cool people in the Espranto world, but there are also quite a lot of people you don't want to be with. Read discussions on Libera Folio for example to see how destructive some Esperantists are.

There is also quite a big difference between youth and non-youth Esperantists. If you are a group of say five under-40ies in a non-youth event you sometimes feel like an alian. It happended that someone took pictures of us saying "Mi volas foti la junulojn."

We also were discussing about that on UK in Copenhagen. That's a problem of many local Esperanto clubs in Europe. In the local clubs it's mostly older people who meet up in order to exercise Esperanto. Since they often don't use the internet and don't travel a lot, they have no other option to practice. Younger Esperantists are not interested in exercising. So they are doing other stuff, mostly not in local clubs.

I don't say that non-youth Esperantists are uncool. You can do lots of interesting things with non-youth Esperantists. But according to my experience there is a huge mental gap between youth and non-youth Esperantists, that just can't be denied.

My answer is that they are well on collecting money of their members, be it membership payments or heritage. They are bad on actually using this money for something else than administrating themselfs. We had this discussion during UK in Havanna, that UEA is literally refusing to use the money they get for anything like, say, educational projects.

Very interesting to hear your point of view, Johmue.

That is exactly my impression about EAB (the British Esperanto Association) - that they are more concerned with ensuring their future existence than actually using their substantial capital to promote the language and recruit new speakers.

You wouldn't believe the anxieties I encountered over the possibility that the Ramsgate congress might need a subsidy despite my undertaking that I would organize the Congress so that it would not cost them a penny. And it in fact produced a surplus.