Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Inter-generational integration efforts

[byron patterson (byronpatterson]

On 4/18/07, byronpatterson [at] gmail.com
Hi, Becky
It is not easy to determine the views of individuals, when forming cohousing
communities in the short time line segments needed to develop a cohousing
project. This is especially inherent in multi-cultural communities. Where
individuals
have diverse economic resources and needs. Cohousing groups have to select
group exercises to raise awareness and determine compatible goals of
members.
This is in part can create transparency of individual views of cohousing
members.
There is also a need to understand the dynamics of the region, which the
cohousing community is being developed. This will help create a more
viability in the decision making process for the community.The group
exercises can be created to
suit the mission of the cohousing community. Hope the suggestion help.



On 4/17/07, Becky M. Pulito <Becky [at] pulito.us> wrote:
> Thank you to all who have replied.  I'm impressed any of you could make
> sense of my expansive query, and I'm grateful for your input.
>
>
>
> ~Becky
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: Becky [at] Pulito.us
>
> To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
>
> Sent: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 12:30 AM
>
> Subject: [C-L]_ Inter-generational Integration efforts
>
>
>
> Hello!  I have a question to pose mainly geared towards established (aka,
> built and moved-in) communities.  But if you have an opinion or idea, and
> you are pre-move-in, I am of course interested in your information as
> well.
>
> Bear with me. I cannot find a way to ask this question in a simple
> sentence
> or two, so here goes.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I am interested to know what, if anything, your community did to prepare
> your members for living together in community, particularly in regards to
> children.  Did you hold a discussion about expectations, concerns,
> requests?
>
> If you have policies or guidelines addressing concerns around children
> specifically, did you formulate them before move-in, and if so, how?  And
> if
> you intentionally did not create such policy/guidelines, what was your
> reasoning?  How did you learn what the wants and needs were within your
> membership?  How did you address such a delicate subject?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> We have families with children, and we have couples and singles without
> children.  We haven't expressly communicated about any expectations or
> concerns we may have.  I'm sure we all have different ideas of "the way
> things will be".  We need to communicate.  We are having a hard time
> finding
> a good way to do that.  Our meetings have a distinctly businesslike feel,
> so
> we are having difficulty figuring out how a discussion such as this could
> fit into our typical meeting structure.  We've considered creative ways of
> integrating adults and children in certain activities, but some members
> bristle at the idea of forced or artificial integration.  How to smooth
> the
> communication pathways and figure out. whatever we need to figure out??
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Many thanks,
>
>
>
> ~Becky, Camelot Cohousing, Berlin, MA
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/