Week 6 - My Community Of Practise

When we look at Wenger's theory model of communities in practise, I'd say we can apply this to any social group we are/have been apart of.
In relation and comparison of myself to this model he created, it's quite difficult to refer back to my own personal experiences. However I'll relate back to when I played rugby for a very sort time (a difficult picture to imagine I know!).
It's prorbably best to refer my experiences as a school boy rugby player to the Communities of Practice in Organizations model we see. This model maybe in relation to business plans and routines, but in terms of the social asspect of my activity, I found it fits in very well.
At the start we have the finding each other stage, which would obviously relate to how when first joining the team, I was introduced to the rest of the players and was very much just a social asspect.
The second part of Wenger's model refers as 'Exploring connectedness, defining joint enterprise, negotiating community'. This would carry on with the social side of being part of a group or team but on a much more personal note, such as making good friends with some of the lads and staying away from others (most often the forwards!).
At the peak of the model we see 'Engaging in activities'. Obviously this would be actually playing a game together which is the best part of being in the team as thats why we were all there, to play a game a rugby.
However after this peak of the model and my rugby playing days, it all quickly decends. For many of my friends, these games would be the only opportunity in the week to meet up and have a good time. But once we started heading our seperate ways, the level of staying in touch slipped.
This then leads onto the last stage of the model, which in many ways relates to what I'm doing at the moment, telling the stories to others, keeping it alive and preserving memories.
Therefore I'd say my experiences would relate to all three of Wenger's characterists of communities of practise:
The domain - The club was a place where we created part of our identities as we all made the same interest in the game
The community - Somewhere we made friendships and relationships so we could learn from each other
The practise - We all gained the same experiences, stories and problems together as a team and club.