Re: Cohousing Salon
From: Diane Simpson (dqsworld.std.com)
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 19:55:53 -0700 (MST)
Hi!
Thought I'd reply to the list, in case anyone else was interested.

Dave & I (Dave Nathan, my husband) have been running cohousing salons of
sorts for a year now. I say "of sorts" because we don't have a particular
topic or particular guest speakers each month. We simply sit at a local
restaurant and talk to whoever comes in. We've made arrangements with the
Dogwood Cafe in Boston to be in the back room the second Monday of every
month from 6-8 p.m. It's a good deal for us and a good deal for the
restaurant--they get extra business on a slow night and we get the exposure.

There's a low wall that divides the back room from the front room--we put
the Cohousing Nexus sign up on the wall and display our literature and talk
to whoever comes in about cohousing. No reservations are necessary. We put
a notice in the local paper, put up a few flyers, and advertise it on our
web site. Some times we get sixteen people, one night we got zero. It seems
to depend on the amount of publicity in the local media.

Now, if you are thinking of doing this as part of a marketing plan,
obviously you would have to put a lot more energy into it than we are.
These are simply freindly, low-key events that everyone is welcome to. We
don't kill ourselves advertising them. We tell everyone who comes about all
of the known cohousing groups in the New England area, not just JP
Cohousing. We sit around, chat, eat food, drink beer, (not a LOT!) and
generally have a fun and relaxing time.

We chose this particular restaurant because it is close to both public
transportation and parking; is easily handicapped-accessible, fairly
smoke-free, very child-friendly (they have a *lot* of high chairs AND a
childrens' menu) and they have good food at reasonable prices. There is
something for both vegetarians and omnivores there. These are the things
you need to think about if you're going to have a salon in a public place.
We decided we wanted to have it in a public place because new people are
often leery of going to someone's private home. And I must say myself, I
would never advertise a meeting at my house on the web. Most people find us
through the internet.

So that's it in a nutshell, hope I've helped.

--Diane:-)




>Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 12:15:08 -0800
>From: "Victoria" <victoria [at] trillium-hollow.org>
>To: "cohousing list" <cohousing-l [at] freedom.mtn.org>
>Subject: Cohousing Salon
>I am interested in starting a Portland, Oregon cohousing salon.  A while
>back I posted a question about this and the leads dead ended.  I am
>particularly interested in the Seattle one.  If you've got information on
>this, please email me.
>Thanks
>Vicky Leary
>Trillium Hollow

       @@                   DQS [at] WORLD.STD.COM                  @@
      @@@@      Diane Simpson  http://world.std.com/~dqs      @@@@
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