Re: part time residents | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Lynn Nadeau (welcomeolympus.net) | |
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 11:24:51 -0700 (PDT) |
RoseWind Cohousing, in Port Townsend WA, is about 15 years "in". Because of our location, many of our members have come from Seattle, which is a two and a half hour drive away. For years, we had a substantial number of members who either had long commutes to meetings, or couldn't come. We farmed out some committee work that didn't have to be done here in town, to a couple of committees that met in Seattle, things like the creation of our legal documents. That way all the committee work didn't have to be done by the smaller number of us here in Port Townsend. We had one committee with members from both sides of the water here, and sometimes they met at a restaurant half way. Other times, they used a speaker phone to include a distant committee member. Those still in the city also had socials with each other - potlucks etc. As our houses got built (one by one - we're a "lot development" type project) and more of our members were on site, we still had some who were distance members. It worked all right. At the point where half our members had moved on site, the dynamic on site was different in a positive way. But even now, when we've been fully owned for years, and almost all the houses are built and occupied, there are still some who work half the week in Seattle, or commute to consulting jobs that take them out of state for a month at a time, or overseas jobs for extended times. Email helps a whole lot, as people can chime in from Morocco or Boston or sick in bed. We've always had whatever critical mass is, to keep things moving forward. Some technicalities: You can't block consensus when you are not there, except if you succeed in getting others to agree with you and THEY do not consent to a proposal in a given form, and are there to participate in the discussion and process. Financial obligations are identical, regardless of where you are or how much you participate. Your situation of last-minute agenda forming for meetings is a huge disadvantage. Try hard to find a way to set agendas ahead of time! Even if the actual meeting order and time allotments are not set ahead, use email to process given issues, and refine what comes to your business meetings to where it is about finishing touches on a proposal, rather than hammering out basics. Assign someone(s) to monitor what issues are in process, where you are with each one, and to make sure that people are following through with "their" issues or proposals. Even with a small group, use a division of labor, and use email and topic-oriented discussions to move things forward. Another boon, especially when we were still geographically spread out, was a weekend retreat, preferably somewhere "away", where so much more could be processed, not only because of two whole days of meeting time (with fun stuff and diversity of activities built in), but as discussions spilled over into walks, meal preparation, social times. Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing Port Townsend Washington (Victorian seaport, music, art, nature) http://www.rosewind.org http://www.ptguide.com http://www.ptforpeace.info (very active peace movement here- see our photo)
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Re: part time residents Lynn Nadeau, April 26 2004
- Re: Re: part time residents Elizabeth Stevenson, April 26 2004
- Re: Re: part time residents - meeting agendas & policy development Tree Bressen, April 27 2004
- Re: Re: part time residents Louise Rausa, May 14 2004
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