Cohousing-L Mailing List: consensus

[barbara keppel (71612.340]

As a former member of the Portland, MAINE, cohousing group, I can
testify that one reason I dropped out (after 3 years) was that 
the group couldn't agree to take consensus training. Meetings 
were unnecessarily interminable and frustrating.

Since then, I served several years on the board of a very small 
local non profit organization whose chair insisted on operating 
by consensus, mostly because he was raised a Quaker. 
Unfortunately, because he learned consensus by osmosis, he didn't
seem to be able to give us all of the rules/techniques we needed,
and we couldn't seem to settle any controversial matter. When I 
finally got more of the information I needed (from someone on the
internet) and was satisfied that the board couldn't decide to 
have training, I left the board along with several other members.

So, what did I learn? Get training. Practice. Get more training.

CT is from this area. I hear good reports of his work.

BobBI