Cohousing-L Mailing List: Searching for a cohousing community

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Nathan Brown <nbrown2 [at] trinity.edu>
is the author of the message below. 
It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org> 
because the message included HTML ;      PLEASE do not post HTML, see
   http://csf.colorado.edu/cohousing/2001/msg01672.html  and
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NOTE:  Please reply to Nathan at his address above and not to the list.
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

Hello,

My name is Nathan Brown.  I am a 23 year old recent
college graduate temporarily living in San Antonio, Texas
USA with my mother while I figure out where to go
with the next stage of my life.  I graduated from Trinity
University, a small, private, non-religious liberal arts
school here in San Antonio.
 
Now that I'm out of school I'm looking for an intentional
community to live in and Sharon of  Sonora Cohousing
recommended that I contact folks on this listserve.

For any groups that are open to new community
members I would like to learn more about your
community, and vise versa, to see if your community
will provide me with what I'm looking for and to enable
your community to determine if I am what you all are
looking for in a fellow community member.

To help you get a little better idea of what I'm looking
for I've included an explanation below.
 
I'm actually currently not looking to purchase or
rent in a cohousing community because I am not
in a financial position to do so.  I realize that most
people looking to live in cohousing are ready to purchase
a home, or at least rent, and eventually I assume that I
will be as well.  However, at this point in my life  I would
like to learn about and experience cohousing first hand
while I work toward a time in which I will be able to
invest in a cohousing dwelling.

When I was in college I became interested in intentional
communities and I spent time as an ecological intern at
Twin Oaks in Virginia for 3 months.  If you are not aware,
Twin Oaks is an income sharing community.  I felt it was
a nice place to visit, but I personally wouldn't want to
live there because, among other reasons, I value having
my own personal property.  While I was exploring
intentional communities I also became aware of cohousing
and I immediately liked the idea.  It seemed to have the
benefits of community that I experienced at Twin Oaks
while allowing individuals to maintain a level of privacy
and financial independence that I find desirable.

The reason I bring up my experience at Twin Oaks is because
I was able to live there for a temporary period of time
while working within the community for my room and board.
This enabled me to experience community living without the
complications of financial matters.  I am aware that cohousing
communities do not tend to provide this sort of living
arrangement in which guests or interns work for their
room and board while being introduced to cohousing life.
However, I am the kind of person that generally goes after
what I want and then I make adjustments to what I want
if necessary.  As a result I'm doing research to see if I can 
find a cohousing group that might be open to considering
the type of living arrangement I mentioned above.


It is also very important to me that I have internet access for
my computer because I have an online business that I am
developing.
 
Finally, within a community I highly value intentional group
decision making, non-violent conflict resolution, local production and
consumption, diversity (including age, gender, ethnicity, etc)
and a concern and focus on sustainable development.

I would be open to doing a wide range of things for my room

and board.  I have experience including:

 

vegan and whole foods cooking, child care, teaching, gardening,

community organizing, fund raising, recruiting, online marketing,

web design, email newsletter creation and management, group

facilitation, and I am very interested in socially responsible use of

money.

So, given what I'm looking for do any of you think we would be a
good match for each other? If not, do you know of any other
cohousing communities that might be a better fit for me that I
could contact? 

I greatly appreciate your time and thank you in advance for
any assistance that you may provide.

Adios,

Nathan

Nathan.Brown [at] trinity.edu
Yahoo Messenger ID: nbrown22000
MSN Messenger ID:nbrown16 [at] hotmail.com
AOL messenger ID: nbrown22000

In the process of gaining wealth, do not forget about Self.

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