Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Retrofit Cohousing -- common dining

[Fred H Olson WB0YQM (fholson]

On Mon, 23 Oct 1995 11:50:53 -0500, 
Bruce Koller   <bkoller [at] dvc.edu> wrote:
>
>Pot lucks, while fine in their own right, do require every household 
>participating to get some kind of food together.  Common meals, on the 
>other hand, only require participation once in a while.  Since this is 
>one of the chief practical advantages of cohousing, shouldn't we start a 
>"dinner club" where households take turns making a complete dinner for 
>each other, to illustrate the advantages? 

Clearly rotating cooking when possible makes sense and that would 
possible before a common house is available. I cited potlucks 
to represent a first step.  

   An intermediate step in retrofit cohousing that 
seems likely is to take turns cooking in individual homes
but bring the prepared food to a temporary common space to eat it.  We 
have been thinking of a large basement space or a 3 car garage that 
could be fixed up minimally to serve this function.  Having some
common space for dining seems quite useful.  It would have a 
"neutral" feel rather than a "guest" feel.  Also my house almost 
always would require some cleanup effort to be used for a 
common meal :)  A common area would seem easier to maintain 
availability.  It could also take on more functions -- a place to
have meetings, hang out and socialize etc.

Fred


Fred

--
Fred H. Olson   fholson [at] uci.com   (612)588-9532  Amateur radio: WB0YQM
1221 Russell Av N, Minneapolis,MN 55411 Sysop of COHOUSING-L listserv;
COHOUSING URL's:  mailto://listserv [at] uci.com (w/ msg: Info Cohousing-L)
gopher://gopher.uci.com/   Twin Cities FREENET is in PUBLIC TEST PHASE 
URL's: mailto://info [at] freenet.msp.mn.us  http://freenet.msp.mn.us/