Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Problems with Voting [was Something faster and easier than consensus?]

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

The funniest part of all this for me personally is that the team chose to
use a voting process to "Same time" and it has resulted in one of the longer
more drawn out process's I can recall in recent times.

Also in my experience, consensus often works poorly with things such as
color choices since there is no best answer, just opinions. Blue or green
can be both equal (depending on the design and palette choice) and it's just
a personal preference with no best answer. Color was one part of the vote
which nobody disagreed with, the placement of the structure was the problem,
with many primary issues and side issues attached.

Rob Sandelin
South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
Sky Valley Environments  <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous [at] msn.com


-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Joani Blank
Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 9:45 PM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: Re: [C-L]_Problems with Voting [was Something faster and easier
than consensus?]




> >> The outcome of the vote was clear, but a  large number
> >> of people did not like the process.
> >
> > Just curious, what were the main complaints about the voting process?

I like Sharon's response to this, but here's another point about the
particular instance where a vote was taken which involved all the kids.  It
seems like your group missed an absolutely  wonderful opportunity to teach
the kids about consensus decision making. Goodness knows they will soon
enough learn, if they haven't already, how "unfair" so-called democratic
voting can seem--and actually be. Wouldn't our world be a whole lot better
place if much more often, institutions (including households, small
businesses and organizations,  neighborhood associations, church groups,
schools and the like) used consensus process whenever they reasonably could.

my two cents,

Joani

Joani Blank
Swan's Market Cohousing
JOIN THE COHOUSING ASSOCIATION OF THE US TODAY!
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www.cohousing.org

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