Cohousing-L Mailing List: meetings, meetings

[vicky de monterey (dryad]

Are any groups exploring alternatives to long frequent meetings as ways
to stay connected and still have time for hobbies (like laundry...)?

I'm hoping for techno-solutions, like local computer networks, that 
facilitate deep broad asynchronous communications on multiple topics 
(like THIS LIST!) so as to shorten the time required for in-person 
synchronous consensus decision-making. (Yes, I'm a computer professional..)

I'm enamored of the many benefits of cohousing over single-family
housing, and intentional community over random connection or 
being limited to only biological family ties. However, I'm also a more-than
full-time worker and a single parent, so am apprehensive about the amount
of time groups may be spending in meetings. Please post some stats on
this for your active group. Tell me how much time per week feels like
enough, too much, too little.. and other thoughts about the dynamics of
meetings.

Let me clarify that I greatly value social connection: dance, drama, joint
projects, cooking and eating, sharing times of all sorts are precious. 
What I fear (as a wearied laborer in the anti-nukes movement) are long,
tedious sessions of minimal productive result. I'm into timed topics
and carefully facilitated meetings where everyone moves purposefully
through the agenda in order to have enough time for DANCING! 

Cheers.