Cohousing-L Mailing List: guidlines on consensus acceptance of new members

[rdorfman (rdorfman]

We have a site and are still in very early development stages, but have been 
meeting long enough to form a cohesive group of about 12 households.  

We are anticipating a number of new poeple to join soon and are putting 
together our guildlines for intake of new members.  These guidelines spell out 
what a household needs to do financially and operationally (attending meetings, 
committes etc) to become an equity member. 

One question we have is whether to leave the final inclusion decision to 
"self-selection", or to include some sort of provision for the current group 
members to have some say in who can come in to the group.  The concern is that 
with self-selection, someone with the time and $$ could insert themselves into 
the group, even if they have very different ideas about what cohousing should 
be.  

Any insight as to how this has been handled appreciated.

thanks
Ron Dorfman
North Oakland Cohousing