Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Looking for advice about enhancing our Friends policy

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

Jonnie, a member of a forming group searching for a site asked about
non-member friends and how or whether to maintain those relationships.

The point of cohousing is to enhance and raise a commitment to personal
relationships with your neighbors. If nothing else, having some kind of
regular social gathering, maybe a monthly potluck, is a way to practice what
you will hopefully someday be doing as neighbors. This sort of social dinner
is a much better way than meetings to introduce people to the concept of
community life, and so such dinners can also be recruiting opportunities. In
fact my recommendation is to have a first contact meeting be some kind of
fun, social event, rather than a business meeting. I have heard lots of
stories about people who attend one meeting, and think....THIS is what
community is about?  And never returned, nor never really get the social
connection piece.

I met a group of former cohousing folks once who had twice a month
gatherings long after their cohousing notions faded. They liked each other
and had a nice social community and as far as I know, are still hanging out,
and have never built a community, although a few of them did move into
houses closer to each other which had bigger space for hosting their former
cohousing dream friends.


Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood, Snohomish County, WA