Re: What are optimal numbers for beginning group?
From: Jenny Guy (jenny_guyhotmail.com)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 19:35:47 -0700 (PDT)
Hi, I'm a member of Nikki's group and I wanted to add to her question:

We've got a developer who has land and wants to work with us, so it looks like our cohousing project is really going to happen! For months, our little group of 3 households has been negotiating with the developer, and now that we know we can build it, we're opening up to new members. We plan to have an all-day group formation workshop, facilitated by a talented trainer (Eris Weaver). We have limited the workshop to 25 participants, with the idea that too many people can't get to know each other. We thought that at the end of the workshop, we'd see how may people wanted to become members. One of our next steps is to have a design workshop with Chuck Durrett. Now that we have a real project, we've got a lot of interest, and a waiting list.

On the one hand, we don't want to keep people out of the design workshop if they're qualified to buy, pay the initial money, etc. There is some feeling that the design workshop will bring the community together and therefore, the greater the number of future members participating, the better the cohesion of the group will be.

On the other hand, there's concern that too many people (could be as many as 40 adults, since there will be 26 - 30 homes) would be too many for a good design workshop. There's also some thought that, in order for the group to gel, it should grow more slowly, and not go from 3 to 30 households in one month. If we invited more people to the design workshop, we would have a second group formation/process/facilitation workshop first, so that everyone at the design workshop would have been to one or both of those.

Nothing is in place in this group except for a couple of core values. All of the early decisions still have to be made, and the culture still has to... come into being.

Jenny Guy
North Oakland Cohousing
California


From: "Nikki Sachs" <nikkisachs [at] gmail.com>

Hi, We are just forming our group and are wondering how many people are too
much for a process workshop and a design workshop?  What have been other
groups experiences as you form in terms of numbers of members? Is it better
to have a smaller early group or not.  Our project hopes to have 30
households when complete.  Would that be too many people to design a common
house?  We have a lot of interest in our project and will have to close the
group at some point (excluding some people for a while) and we are trying to
figure out the best numbers for  effective work. Thanks, Nikki Sachs  North
Oakland Cohousing

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