Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Excluding a member

[R.N. Johnson (cohoranda]

Early in the forming stages, our group had an interested indivudal come to a 
meeting who has some major mental health issues, and who is well known for 
showing up to all sorts of public events and disrupting them.  we made a 
decision to add to our bylaws a clause that allowed us to exclude someone if 
80% of the group agreed that their inclusion would likely prevent us from 
successful development.  One of out members approached the person, and gently 
explained that we did not feel we could include them in the group..  We feared 
repercussions of some sort, but in fact, when my partner and I ran across her a 
year or so later, she was quite friendly.  
A few years later, we had a person join the grou who initially seemed 
enthusiastic about what we were doing, and eager to join in, but soon began 
systematically questioning all decisions that had been made before she joined 
the group, down to the names of the committees, and bringing her ideas to a 
vote.  Many of her ideas were good, but her inability to accept any group 
decision that was not done exactly the way she wanted as legitimate soon 
brought her into conflict with the facilitators. She dominated group time and 
conversation, and absolutely stopped all progress. 
    The facilitators began to clash with her by attempting to hold the line on 
group decisions. I quit facilitating for a while because she became so hostile 
to me.  Other facilitators  did not hold the line as much, so did not come in 
for as much hostility, but were unable to get anyting done, and quickly become 
extremely frustrated. Several of us brought up the possiblity of asking her to 
leave, but the non-facilitators in our group did not see her as an issue.  
We lost one of the founding households, then several other households.  Our 
group dropped from 14 dues paying households, to five. Finally, she moved out 
of town, and we were eventually able to regroup. If she had not left of her own 
accord, I think the group would have fallen apart. 
  In restrospect, I wish that those of us who saw the problem early on had gone 
to her and expressed our concerns clearly and respectfully.  We could have also 
brought in a strong outside facilitator.  I am not sure that our group could 
have included someone with a need for that level of control, but I think we 
might have parted with much more positive feelings, and the group would have 
been stronger, not weaker by the experience.
Randa Johnson
New Brighton Cohousing
Aptos, CA
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