Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: meals

[Eris Weaver (erisw]

Anne said:
> But there are some members who want to open our meals program to
> neighbors,
> friends, relatives, and potential members. This would mean they wouldn't
> be invited to a particular meal as a guest but would be signing up to cook
> &/or clean twice a month, while signing up for as many meals as they like.

Here at FrogSong, we had a LOT of discussion about this; there were folks
who really liked the idea of our meal system being more open to more
people. That was before we moved in.

(Other Froggies who are out there, correct me if I'm remembering anything
wrong.)

We eventually decided NOT to open it up. People have guests, people's
non-resident significant others participate at different levels -- some
come as guests, some cook sometimes.

Some people (including me) didn't want to open it up because it's the one
thing we all do as a community is cook and eat together, one of the
"perks" of community membership. I could never fully understand the
motivation behind wanting to include "outsiders" other than that those
people might want to. (I should add that most of this discussion was
fairly theoretical as the only person(s) interested in participating more
formerly was the aforementioned non-resident partner of a community
member, and one former resident.)

The biggest reason we decided NOT to open it up was purely physical: our
meals are very well attended and our dining room is full! We have no ROOM
to add more people!

Eris Weaver
FrogSong
Cohousing in Cotati, CA