Cohousing-L Mailing List: ANother example of political action, much shorter

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

After the first cohousing conference (or was it the second?)I bought a box
of the old cohousing books, which ended up costing like $2 each or
something. Then I creating a cohousing fact sheet explaining cohousing, the
projects in WA, why its cool, etc.

Then I sent these to all the state and local planning offices I could get a
name and address for until I ran out of books.

The result? 20 thank you letters, including one from the governor (Who I did
not send a book to, but the state person I sent it to bought one retail and
sent it to him) and several references in later years for forming projects
which went like:, "Oh Cohousing, yeah I read that book. Interesting
stuff...Now about your project...." And five years later, I met a planner,
now a city councilman in person who said as we met: "Rob Sandelin? Oh yeah,
you sent me that great cohousing book", which kicked off a TWO HOUR
conversation about cohousing and non-profit community development
legislative agenda ideas. After five years this guy was STILL excited about
cohousing.

It's called seeding. Works pretty good as a political action device. I heard
a couple people donated a subscription to the cohousing magazine to their
state planning office library. That's an easy one.

Rob Sandelin
Northwest Intentional Communties Association
Building a better society, one neighborhood at a time