As a member of the Greater Boston Men’s Network (GBMN) Core Team, Lawrence Barriner II was able to provide me with details about this organization’s history and mission. I consider GBMN of significant enough importance to the MKP New England Area Greater Boston Community, that I am featuring this as part of the GBC News.
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The first seed of the GBMN was planted in April 2019 when Ken Sazama (With Good Dudes & Co-Counseling Men’s Work) asked Jordan Mudd to help create a list of men’s groups in the Greater Boston Community. Within a few months Ken and Jordan created a core team. The members of the core team included:
- Ken Sazama
- Jordan Mudd
- Ukumbwa Sauti, Men’s Work Initiative
- Adam Patten, MENding Cambridge
- Justin Jimenez, Brother’s Healing Circle
- Michel Legrende & Taggart Wass, Corporate Accountability Men’s Caucus
The core team realized that an important step to deepening the work would be to have a gathering The first gathering led to two more with these three gatherings happening between October 2019 and February 2020, primarily to build trusting relationships among the participants. As many as 30 participants showed up for these gatherings.
After the gatherings, Lawrence joined the Core Team online in Spring 2020 and helped the group uncover some key insights. One of which was that the participants had two distinct purposes: creating a men’s emotional support group and stewarding the energy and vision of the men who had come to the gatherings. As a result, the Core Team subdivided into two groups: one was created for the men who wanted a men’s group and a second was formed to do the work of organizing the men and men’s groups that were connected to the gatherings. This second group took several months and has evolved into the GBMN. You can read details about the history of the GBMN and timeline of the GBMN online.
The GBMN has been visualized as a network of people who create what they have energy around, allowing for adaptation, growth and shrinkage as needed. Teams grow and shrink as energy is available. Three teams currently exist:
- Communications Team
- Gathering Team
- Support for Leaders of Men’s Groups Team
The core team anticipates that as energy shrinks, the existing teams may disband, merge, or otherwise shape shift. Their highest hope, however, is that people join, have more energy for additional teams, and the collective capacity of the network will grow. Presently the GBMN has no formal relationship with men’s groups in the Greater Boston Community, but the team understands and desires for that to change at some point in the future.
As the pandemic wound down during the summer of 2022, the GBMN Core Team organized another gathering, which was attended by Tom Caruso, Mankind Project USA New England (MKP NE) Greater Boston Community Coordinator. Tom has participated in two Core Team meetings and is hoping that someone from the MKP NE Greater Boston Community will continue to participate in these meetings. Please let Tom Caruso (tcaruso2@gmail.com) know if you have an interest in representing the MKP NE Greater Boston Community in this organization.
