Cohousing-L Mailing List: Pioneer Valley Cohousing adopts Sociocracy-based governance

[Jerry Koch-Gonzalez (jerry]

Dear Cohousers,

Last Sunday the Pioneer Valley Cohousing Community adopted a governance
structure based on Sociocracy/Dynamic Governance.
We'd been operating with consensus as a decision making method since before
our construction and move in 1994.

Some of my opinions:  Although much of our community operations work
remarkably well, our policy making was based on the burning soul method and
too often the burning souls burnt out before policies were agreed upon. So,
we had no "blocks" in recent memory but few proposals reached the point of
testing for consensus. We'd become a "conservative" community. After a year
of presentations, tension and even a community mediation session, the new
governance proposal was approved with 3 people standing aside.

Now comes the work of implementing our new governance system!

I'll share some of the details of the system in a future email.

Jerry
-- 
Jerry Koch-Gonzalez
413-549-1747
Member, Pioneer Valley Cohousing Community <http://cohousing.com>
Principal, Both-And Consulting <http://both-and.net>
Member, The Sociocracy Consulting Group <http://sociocracyconsulting.com>
Certified Trainer, New England NVC <http://newenglandnvc.org> & Sociocracy
President, Class Action <http://www.classism.org>