Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Guest rooms? / Common House access?

[Robyn (pov]

1.  If you have guest rooms in your Common House, how many do you have
and 
how often are they actually used, say over a year's time?

~ Pinakarri Community (Fremantle, Western Australia) has one guest room.
It is often in high demand by residents' guests, community guests (eg,
social activists) and WWOOFers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms).
Guests are given keys to whole commonhouse, except office. A resident or
host opens the office for the guest to use computer, usually they want
to check email. WWOOFers work 2 hours/day for use of the room. Currently
there's no cost to other guests although we've yet to look closely at
this. I doubt that we'd ever charge residents' guests as it's an amenity
for members, and most help out. It's a cost/benefit thing - how much
extra voluntary admin would be needed? Donations are welcome and
encouraged - we have a magic bucket in the dining room.

We have an unused loft area that will be developed to be
multifunctional, including for sleepovers, as we sometimes have small
groups of people passing through (Peace Pilgrimmage, etc).

2.  How do you handle the availability of the Common House for your
community?  For example, does everyone have a key, or is the Common
House routinely open on certain hours and one person is responsible for
unlocking and locking the doors?

~ All house door locks were keyed to open Common House, ie my house key
also opens the C/H. Plus there is a C/H only key for guests and
non-resident members. Our C/H is centrally located within our medium
density urban site (13 onsite households, + 3 member households within
spitting distance, a few more scattered about) so it's left open all
day. One member locks up each night; he works long days and it's the one
thing that he can regularly offer as service to the community. 


Cheers
Robyn Williams
Pinakarri Community
Fremantle, Western Australia
www.pinakarri.org.au


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