RE: Work Requirements
From: Mariana Almeida (mqapacbell.net)
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2000 22:57:52 -0600 (MDT)
Hi Rob, 

In light of the recent "what size is best?" discussion, how many households
and how many adults do you have in this energetic community?

Mariana
East SF Bay (looking for a site) Cohousing 


At 10:33 AM 6/18/00 -0500, Rob Sandelin wrote:
>
>Sharingood is an 13 year old  cohousing community.
>
>We rotate the cleaning of the commonhouse monthly through all the members,
>so in addition to the regular cleaning it gets around dinners,  a team of
>people do deep cleaning once a month. This is mandatory, but people do trade
>off or pay someone to take their shift.
>
>We have one large group meeting a month, lasts a couple of hours at the
>most.
>We have several small groups which hold meetings whenever they want,
>depending on the team or issue. For example community meals  may have a
>discussion circle to get ideas and talk, and then hold a decision circle to
>make the decision. These circles are open and advertised to all, only those
>most interested usually come. Most of our decisions are made by small
>groups.
>
>The board meets once a month. The board is sort of the coordinating
>committee and meta problem solving team.
>
>Dinner and such has its own sign up system, people sign up to cook, help and
>clean. All who do so are given 2 free meals.
>
>Teams of people do things that need doing. The landscapers do gardening, the
>maintenance people maintain stuff, the commonhouse team takes care of the
>commonhouse issues and such.
>
>There is an expectation that you be on at least one team. How much you
>contribute to that team or other efforts is up to you. We have plenty of
>willing hands so things that need doing usually get done. Usually all it
>takes is an announcement that help is needed  doing X for the community. I
>can't recall the last time that strategy  did not bring forth someone to do
>the job. If anything, I would suspect we have lots of latent work will,
>people who WANT to do stuff that don't have anything to focus on.
>
>We hold weekend work parties whenever it would be useful to have many hands
>on a job. For example, we did a trail drainage work party and in a couple
>hours  got a drainage system installed, closed over, and the pathway
>chipped. Sometimes  work parties are swamped with more people than are
>actually needed to do the job. Sometimes barely enough people show up. It
>varies and you never know until the event happens.
>
>Rob Sandelin
>Home again at Sharingwood, where to my surprise a building lot is actually
>up for sale! First one of those we have had in quite awhile. Apparently
>while I was gone there was a bunch of renter movement around. I think we
>also still have a rental space available, but I might be wrong, these things
>change fast around here.
>

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