Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: quorum

[Susan L. Hedgpeth (hedgpeth]

To my mind the problem with proxies is that people are making up their mind 
before the meeting.  What if the discussion brings up points they have not 
heard of or thought of?  What if listening to their neighbors changes their 
mind about the issue?  If they aren't at the meeting, they aren't part of 
the group process which is integral to consensus.

Susan Hedgpeth
Pleasant Hill Cohousing
Pleasant Hill, California
USA

At 01:16 PM 2/17/2004 -0800, you wrote:
> How about proxies?  We had the same problem in our community last year. In 
> order for the proxy form to be legal it must include the following elements:
>
> 1) date proxy was signed
> 2) location of meeting
> 3) Which meeting(s) the proxy is valid
> 4) List the proxy holder (we listed two in the likely event the first 
> choice may be absent), 5) Print name, sign and date the form by the 
> owner.  (In Oregon, it is valid for one year if no expiration date is given)
> 6) Have an option to provide an expiration date.  Some of our proxies are 
> only good for a single meeting.
>
> Note: In Oregon, one is not allow to give a proxy for Board of Directors 
> meetings.
>
> The second issue would be to question the process of the meetings?  Are 
> they productive?  Meeting on Saturday mornings may be asking a bit 
> much.  We meet bi-monthly on Sunday evenings 4:30pm - 6:15 PM.
>
> I can send you a copy of our proxy form if you like.
>
> HTH,
> Signe
>
> Lynn Nadeau <welcome [at] olympus.net> wrote:
> This is about quorum, the legal minimum number for making a binding
> decision. We are undecided about whether or not to reduce the requirement
> for quorum.
>
> At RoseWind Cohousing in Port Townsend, a long-built community, some of
> the decision making is delegated to committees, and many sorts of meeting
> decisions don't require a quorum. Except important decisions which are
> defined as "Class One." This would be matters like policy, change in our
> governing documents, approval of the annual budget. These require the
> presence in person of someone from 51% of our households, thus 13 of 24.
> Maybe 6 meetings a year have this need.
>
> Our business meetings are one Saturday morning a month. Our process stuff
> is fairly smooth and those who attend meetings are generally positive in
> their evaluation of the experience.
> And yet, when there is a decision requiring a quorum, our Facilitation
> team has ended up twisting arms and calling in favors, to get 13
> households to show up. They are sick of this and want us to reduce the
> quorum requirement.
>
> Why don't people come? Five households are unavailable for various
> reasons, like not being on site. Still that leaves 19 households on site
> from whom the 13 attenders could come.
>
> My fear is that if we reduce our quorum, we are reducing our expectations
> and making greater participation even less likely. We don't want a
> downward spiral in participation! There is enough diversity in our group
> that not every group of 10 people, for example, would be representative.
>
> The alternative is raising voluntary meeting attendance, but that's
> easier said than done. Our membership is highly involved in dozens of
> "outside" projects of all sorts, and also includes people who travel,
> both for pleasure and for work. Any ideas?
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