Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: part time residents

[Louise Rausa (louiserausa]

Hi Lynn,

I've been reading your messages from time to time and have been quite
interested in some of your perspectives.

My husband, Bob, and I have been and will be looking around at different
existing and potential CoHousing developments in
different parts of the country.  Port Townsend, and all that it has to
offer, sounds completely charming.  Could you tell me if
RoseWind is totally full or will/would there be future development at any
time in the near or distant future?

Thanks.  Louise Rausa     LouiseRausa [at] Earthlink.net

P.S.  We're non-resident members of Two Acre Wood in Sebastopol, CA, and
"priced out" former members of Yulupa
CoHousing in Santa Rosa, CA.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lynn Nadeau" <welcome [at] olympus.net>
To: "cohousing L" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2004 8:23 PM
Subject: [C-L]_ Re: part time residents


> RoseWind Cohousing, in Port Townsend WA, is about 15 years "in". Because
> of our location, many of our members have come from Seattle, which is a
> two and a half hour drive away. For years, we had a substantial number of
> members who either had long commutes to meetings, or couldn't come. We
> farmed out some committee work that didn't have to be done here in town,
> to a couple of committees that met in Seattle, things like the creation
> of our legal documents. That way all the committee work didn't have to be
> done by the smaller number of us here in Port  Townsend. We had one
> committee with members from both sides of the water here, and sometimes
> they met at a restaurant half way. Other times, they used a speaker phone
> to include a distant committee member.
>
> Those still in the city also had socials with each other -  potlucks etc.
>
> As our houses got built (one by one - we're a "lot development" type
> project) and more of our members were on site, we still had some who were
> distance members. It worked all right. At the point where half our
> members had moved on site, the dynamic on site was different in a
> positive way.
>
> But even now, when we've been fully owned for years, and almost all the
> houses are built and occupied, there are still some who work half the
> week in Seattle, or commute to consulting jobs that take them out of
> state for a month at a time, or overseas jobs for extended times.
>
> Email helps a whole lot, as people can chime in from Morocco or Boston or
> sick in bed. We've always had whatever critical mass is, to keep things
> moving forward.
>
> Some technicalities: You can't block consensus when you are not there,
> except if you succeed in getting others to agree with you and THEY do not
> consent to a proposal in a given form, and are there to participate in
> the discussion and process. Financial obligations are identical,
> regardless of where you are or how much you participate.
>
> Your situation of last-minute agenda forming for meetings is a huge
> disadvantage. Try hard to find a way to set agendas ahead of time! Even
> if the actual meeting order and time allotments are not set ahead, use
> email to process given issues, and refine what comes to your business
> meetings to where it is about finishing touches on a proposal, rather
> than hammering out basics. Assign someone(s) to monitor what issues are
> in process, where you are with each one, and to make sure that people are
> following through with "their" issues or proposals. Even with a small
> group, use a division of labor, and use email and topic-oriented
> discussions to move things forward.
>
> Another boon, especially when we were still geographically spread out,
> was a weekend retreat, preferably somewhere "away", where so much more
> could be processed, not only because of two whole days of meeting time
> (with fun stuff and diversity of activities built in), but as discussions
> spilled over into walks, meal preparation, social times.
>
> Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing
> Port Townsend Washington (Victorian seaport, music, art, nature)
> http://www.rosewind.org
> http://www.ptguide.com
> http://www.ptforpeace.info (very active peace movement here- see our
> photo)
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