Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Keeping prospective members

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Nov 17, 2006, at 3:37 PM, Rob Sandelin wrote:

> One of the difficulties involved in cohousing development is sometimes
> people show up a few times, then just as you think you can count on 
> them,
> they disappear. It is interesting to me that few developing groups 
> have gone
> to the trouble of tracking these folks down to see what made them 
> unselect
> themselves.

One reason new groups don't do this is that they are overwhelmed with 
new tasks and trying to figure out what they are doing. While at the 
same time, if they did this -- followed up on leavers -- they might 
have more people to do that work and need less recruiting because they 
might do it better and keep some of these people.

One way to keep from feeling overwhelmed and to be sure this task, 
following up on the leavers, gets done is to assign someone to it. 
"This is your job and we value your work in doing this specific task" 
and expect reports on a regular basis.

Too often a forming group will end up with everyone doing everything -- 
at least worrying about everything -- and then nothing gets done. Or 
everything gets done a little bit. Task delegation goes a long way 
toward accomplishing those tasks.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
http://www.sociocracy.info