Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Common house reservations

[Bonnie Fergusson (fergyb2]

    Here at Swan's Market we have a large Calendar which we use to sign up for 
the Common House, the Guest Room and also to sign up to cook for meals.  
    The rules about signing up for the Common House are mostly about clean up 
expectations.  Whoever signs up for the Common House for an event, must be 
present for the event and supervise clean up afterwards.  The Common House is 
not available, obviously, on Common Dinner Nights and on the days of other 
regularly scheduled Community events.  The Community takes precedence.  You can 
sign up for either a "public" or "private" event.  If a public event we are all 
welcome to join in, if a private event we try to stay out of the Common House 
during that time (except for elevator usage, our elevator is in the common 
house and we have wheelchair riders).  If you want your event to be private 
(family parties, etc.) you need to label it that way when you sign up.  
Generally the only disputes we've had about Common House usage are inadequate 
clean up and people propping open the gate rather than letting people in 
individually (security issues).  The Common House
 has been used for family parties, graduation parties, memorials, a bris, 
monthly meetings of various groups (usually groups one of us is a member of), 
musical concerts, poker nights, board game nights, potlucks, both planned and 
spontaneous, holiday parties, and politicians coming in to campaign, women's 
night, yoga class, etc. 
    Our rules about the guest room are that no one can sign up for more than 10 
days in a row, specially popular holiday times (such as Thanksgiving and 
Christmas) can not be signed up for more than 6 months in advance.  Only owners 
can sign up for the guest room, not renters unless the Owner cedes that right 
to them.  
    The owner who signs up for the guest room is the "host" and is expected to 
make up the bed with clean sheets and put out the towels before the guest(s) 
arrive and to strip the bed and wash the sheets and towels after they leave and 
orient them to our general community expectations (we have a handout) while 
they are here.  Each household gets 3 free guest room nights a year (we have 20 
households) and anything over that is $10 a night.  Sometimes we host 
"Community" guests, ie other Cohousers coming for cohousing related events,etc. 
and these are handled by our "Concierge" who is in charge of all things related 
to the guest room.  Community guests are charged $20.  We have a sign on the 
guest room door which can be turned to vacant or occupied.  This is because our 
guest room is off our exercise room and the expectations are that people will 
exercise quietly (ie no music, etc.) early in the morning if the guest room is 
occupied.  We had to keep the
 guest room locked up when not in use while we had teenagers living here (a 
decision made after some unfortunate incidents) but we've stopped bothering 
with that now that the teens have grown up and moved on.  Just a heads up in 
case you have teens in your community.  The income from the guest room covers 
the cost of utilities, laundering the sheets and towels, toilet paper and soap 
for the guest bathroom, the once a month cleaning, and occasionally replacing 
bedding, towels, etc.
     Good luck with move in, it's an exciting time.
                       Bonnie Fergusson
                       Swan's Market Cohousing
                       Oakland, CA

--- On Thu, 10/30/08, Catya Belfer-Shevett <catya [at] homeport.org> wrote:

> From: Catya Belfer-Shevett <catya [at] homeport.org>
> Subject: [C-L]_ Common house reservations
> To: "Cohousing-L" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> Date: Thursday, October 30, 2008, 1:57 AM
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm looking for the common wisdom on common house space
> reservations to 
> start a discussion with my group this Sunday (we're
> moving in soon).
> 
> How do you handle guest rooms reservations? Are there
> worries about 
> people monopolizing them? What do you do about that?
> 
> How about the great room?  Inclusive (of the community)
> events? 
> Exclusive/private events? Big events? Small events?
> 
> Other community rooms? Living room or whatever?
> 
> Thanks!!
> 
>       - cat
> 
> -- 
> Catya Belfer-Shevett   ~   webmaster, www.cohousing.org
> www.catya.org   ~   Cohousing in MA! www.mosaic-commons.org
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