Developmental Stages of Cohousing | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Thomas Lofft (tloffthotmail.com) | |
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 20:06:33 -0700 (PDT) |
I think Michael's ideas below are very creative and offer possibilities for serious consideration. Community Renewal: How long has it been since you've been to a good old fashioned 'Revival'? Not a religious revival, but a cohousing revival, like is offered every year at the CoHoUS conference? Attendance at the conference can offer many stimulating ideas for consideration by your community. Too expensive to get 50% of your community to the national conference? How about budgeting $50 per household for hosting an in-situ "Cohousing Revival" within the community, including hiring an external cooking team to present the meals? Select a knowledgeable, energetic "Cohousing Couch, excuse me, Coach" to provide stimulating discussion and targeted activities to re-engage the residents, including the teens and children. [Coaches: Submit a response to an implied Cohousing Coaching RFQ on line to this blog for consideration.] Is there a Certified Cohousing Couch designation yet? Community Swinging: many couples find it stimulates the passion that may have diminished in their partnership. Do you need a cohousing 'change of pace'? How about grabbing a one month vacation rental at another community in one of your dreamland vacation spots: Northwest; Boston; Washington, DC; California? Nevada? New Mexico? Or arrange a swap from your community for a direct swap with a household from another community and both communities will benefit from engaging with a new visitor from another planet with a head full of new perspectives to share. Yes, a Cohousing Exchange is an idea I've secretly embraced for a long time, but my personal plate is already very full for the rest of the year.\ Cheers, feel free to engage and embrace anything you like. Tom Lofft Liberty Village, MD where we still need twenty more households to build new homes within commuting distance to Baltimore, Washington, and a dozen each different colleges and hospitals. http://www.libertyvillage.com From: "Michael Barrett" <mbarrett [at] toast.net> Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Developmental stages of cohousing I am surprised that this issue has only now appeared on this board. I have observed, with regret, declining participation in both the cohousing communities I have been privileged to live in, and have speculated on whether it is possible to rekindle the social fires that exist in the brand new or building community. I am not optimistic. I feel it is something akin to love and marriage. In love one's life is changed. If marriage follows two lives are changed, hopefully and wonderfully. But a few years later, for most of us, the fires die down. Perhaps cohousing is the same except that we fall in love with an idea, a practice and a whole bunch of people. Following this analogy, there are marriage renewal movements which claim success. Perhaps problematically, "swinging" can provide a terrific boost to at least the sexual side of two (or more) partnerships or marriages. The cohousing conference is probably our best shot at a a renewal movement. I won't even speculate whether there is a cohousing equivalent to "swinging". I see two significant positive influences on maintaining "community". One is a regular scheduled community shared meals program. The other is the presence in a community of the community organizer who, tirelessly and without tangible reward, keeps (in my experience) her finger on the pulse of needs and wishes and just never stops organizing "stuff". Someone said to me that without constant pumping of the community (social) well, cohousing degenerates into conventional American society. I substantially agree. I have served my time trying to maintain and build community but am far from tireless, and I confess to a need for expressed appreciation, and eventually dropped off the relevant committee, and have confined much of my community activity to things that have less need for wide and enthusiastic community participation (like finance, and amending the bylaws). Sadly the only other thing that I believe can bring a community together is disaster, or the real threat of truly imminent disaster. I believe the initial (and wonderful feel-so-good) bonds in a forming community are often largely forged in the fires of despair and frustration at the intransigence at those who may not support, or more likely actively oppose, the forming community. If there is any bright side to the dark side, my hope is that when the oil (or water or food) stops flowing cohousing communities will rediscover community, as opposed to my morbid fear that in conventional America, families will reach for their guns. But hopefully there are communities out there who have found an equilibrium where happiness and contentment reign supreme and frustration and discord is almost non existent, and is very effectively handled. Can we hear from you how you do it? Michael - at Shadowlake Village - where we are enjoying unseasonable August cool and low humidity (only 76? at midday today) and the children are counting down the days till school starts. Being as they, of course, share the same attributes as the children from Lake Woebegone they can barely wait to get back. ( I find the term "kids" to be somewhat dismissive, and thus something I resist applying to ours)
- Re: developmental stages of cohousing, (continued)
- Re: developmental stages of cohousing Sharon Villines, August 12 2011
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developmental stages of cohousing Rod Lambert, August 12 2011
- Re: Developmental stages of cohousing Michael Barrett, August 12 2011
- Re: developmental stages of cohousing R.N. Johnson, August 12 2011
- Developmental Stages of Cohousing Thomas Lofft, August 12 2011
- Re: Developmental Stages of Cohousing Sharon Villines, August 13 2011
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Re: Developmental Stages of Cohousing R Philip Dowds, August 13 2011
- Re: Developmental Stages of Cohousing Wayne Tyson, August 15 2011
- Re: Developmental Stages of Cohousing Sharon Villines, August 15 2011
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