Cohousing-L Mailing List: Managing initial public meetings

[Steven Diamond (diamondz]

Our small "nuclear core" cohousing-creating group of three couples have
decided to hold our first "public meeting" sometime next month. We were
wondering if anyone would share their experiences/opinions on two questions
raised at our last meeting:

1)  Did you offer babysitting?  We may be having the meeting at the
university, and we aren't too sure of the babysitting possibilities.
Collectively we have three kids ourselves, but were kind of planning to find
a sitter(!) so we can focus on meeting new people, answering questions, etc.
(So far, the kids--ages 7, 4 and 1-- have hung around the perimeter of all
our small scale meetings).

2)  What do you do about handling just-plain-weird or creepy people? Maybe
some of us are worried about nothing, but perhaps because several members
are in the therapy/counseling business, there's a heightened sensitivity
about this issue.  

Thanks and wish us luck!

Steve Diamond, on behalf of the (temporarily-so-named!) 
Rio Grande Cohousing Group (Albuquerque).