Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Once You've Moved in, How DO You Manage Things?

[Rob Sandelin (Floriferous]

We have live together for years. The primary tasks and systems you need to set 
up for may be different than ours but here is our systems:

Dinners. This takes quite a bit of planning and coordination to pull together 
a system to produce 4 meals a night. You will need to figure out money stuff, 
health stuff, presentation and setup, clean up, cooking, equiptment, dietary 
needs, and dining environment, especially if you have lots of kids.

Member communication. Keeping everybody up to speed on the details of whats 
happening is a system you will want to create.

Social. It is good to have some people play social directors for awhile, just 
to get the ball rolling. WIth luck you have several people already in this 
role.

Clean up of kid stuff. If you have several kids, they will leave stuff around 
in your environment. Creating a fun way to clean this up is a good system to 
have.

Environment. Natural and buildings. You will need some group of people to tend 
your living things, and also to tend your buildings, commonhouse, walkways, 
garages, etc.

legal and operational. You will need some group of pretty responsible people 
to look after the legal, financial, and overall operational needs of the 
enterprise. 

We have various processes in place to handle these systems. Most of the 
processes involve groups of people working together, some are just owned by 
individuals. Some groups hire out some aspects. At Sharingwood, over the years 
the names and memberships of the groups of people that handle things have 
changed regularily, however, the tasks and systems of living together are 
pretty constant. 

Rob Sandelin
Who has been involved in: archtectural review, dinner planning, commonhouse 
team, facilitation team, landscape team, board-two terms, landscape team, 
trail master, kid team, social committee, communications team, newsletter 
editior and a couple other things I have no doubt forgetten about.....