Any lifestyle presents its own set of challenges and a unique lifestyle often creates unique challenges. Project TriStar is well aware of the real and potential challenges to its members for choosing this off-the-grid, sustainable, and subterranean community that is founded on conscious awareness, social responsibility, natural, and universal laws.
There is no time to be naive about the bold goals and aspirations of the community design and lifestyle, or about the reasons why members have chosen this lifestyle. Project TriStar sees many of the beliefs held in present day society as the root cause for social inequality, economic depravity, over consumption, and unconscious irresponsibility. The Project TriStar initiative is about discarding these failed belief systems and co-creating an environment that allows life to be nurtured in a more natural and harmonic manner.
For many people, life is challenging enough without adding any major changes and often people do everything possible to maintain stability by managing change to a minimum. Becoming a member in the Project TriStar community generally means that a person has already grown beyond the fear of change and has embraced the desire to change their lives in order to realize the opportunities that life has to offer. However, this doesn't mean that all members are instantly ready for Project TriStar community experience.
The Project TriStar member orientation program is designed to help each member prepare for life in the community. For most members, just living in a remote, off-the-grid, and self-sustainable environment presents tremendous change and new challenges. The community's subterranean architecture, underground operations, and communal lifestyle provides even more change and challenges. When you add the exclusive raw vegan diet, naturopathy health care, and a lifestyle based on conscious awareness, natural, and universal laws, membership in the Project TriStar community means a tremendous amount of change over a very short period of time.
Project TriStar understands this may be the first opportunity for community members to experience such a unique lifestyle. As such, Project TriStar has developed an orientation program to assist members in their understanding and incorporation of these lifestyle changes prior to moving to the remote community location. The orientation program is designed as a transition period from a lifestyle based on the conveniences of modern society to one of remote sustainability.
Each member of the community is required to go through the orientation program before relocating to the community site. In order to accomplish this goal, the orientation program is an ongoing and parallel operation to all other activities of community planning, development, construction.
The Membership Committee is responsible for organizing members into groups that will go through the orientation program together. The members in any specific group are determined by a combination of member availability, on-site manpower needs, choice of work assignment, and skill set assessment.
Before entering the orientation program, each member is provided a copy of the Member Handbook. The Member Handbook includes everything a member needs to know about the community responsibilities to support the members and the members responsibilities to support the community. After the member has gone through the handbook thoroughly, they are asked to sign a statement of understanding and acceptance of it's contents.
The orientation facility is not the remote location of the Project TriStar community, but rather an alternate location that provides many of the same lifestyle challenges except for the subterranean architecture. This location is also close enough to major roads to provide ease of access by both members and facilitators.
The orientation facility simulates an off-the-grid lifestyle in a communal environment. Besides one-on-one and group presentations by orientation facilitators, members will work, eat, sleep, and play in an environment that simulates the actual community lifestyle.
As previously stated, Project TriStar advises all members to deliberately and diligently prepare for the community lifestyle. This means becoming aware of any personal issues that may create insecurity or anxiety from living in the community. It means performing a self evaluation and being totally honest with yourself and your findings. It also means beginning to incorporate any necessary changes to your current lifestyle so the transition to the community lifestyle is as seamless as possible.
Before entering the orientation program, it is important that each member has already processed through many of the unique lifestyle changes offered by the community. The orientation program is intended to supplement a member's ongoing personal transition efforts to off-the-grid living and not as a replacement for members to take personal responsibility for this transition.
The orientation program offers flexibility for the individual needs of each member, however, the program is not indefinite. The orientation facilitators work individually with each community member to ensure the transition needs are being addressed and the member is prepared for relocation prior to leaving the orientation.
Orientation involves both indoor and outdoor activities in individual and group environments in order to facilitate the following topics:
- Review the contents of the Member Handbook
- Experience the close and communal living arrangements
- Experience the 100% raw vegan diet
- Skill set evaluation and determination of work assignment
- Electronic communication and device deprivation
- Remote living and isolation adjustment
- Member interaction and trust building
- Educational and activity interests for mind, body, and spirit
- Special needs analysis and medicine replacement
- Review emergency plans and individual responsibilities
- Emotional evaluation and group clearing exercises
- Complete physical and health examination
- Question and answer related to operations or governance
The Membership Committee provides ongoing review and evaluation of the member progress throughout the orientation program to ensure each member is completely ready for the community lifestyle. The committee must agree that a member is ready on every level of mind, body, and spirit before that member is relocated to the remote community.
