Cohousing-L Mailing List: Consensus vs. Executive meetings

[Mark Bishop (MarkBishop]

My church runs partially by consensus.  I have been reviewing our Bylaws and
am considering proposing some changes to move more into a consensus
decision-making body.  I know most cohousing groups run by consensus
including the development part of the project so I wanted to ask you a
question.

Our Bylaws provides the ability of just 3 people to call a private
"Executive meeting" to make decisions without minutes.  An attorney memeber
thinks this is "absolutely essential if the Church has legal issues to
consider, discussions with a lawyer cannot be open to the public.  This
would destroy the attorney -client relationship so that anything told
to the lawyer must be disclosed to an opposing party in a legal dispute. As
an example, take the situation in which a staff
member or volunteer is accused of assaulting a child. Parents want to sue
individual and church.  Discussions about what happened, whether the Church
was negligent, whether it wants to settle, what its  lawyer recommends, etc.
etc. should be in private.  Among other things, a public discussion could be
a violation of the privacy rights of both the child and the staff member."

This seems counter to a consensus body to hide information from the
membership, yet I can see her point.  Do your cohousing bylaws or policies
handle this kind of situation?

Regards,
MArk


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