Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Best ways to seek collaborators?

[David Heimann (heimann]

Hello Tiffany,

           A number of people have responded to you about procedures to
connect with interested people.  For a different pace, Diane Simpson, one
of the co-founders of Jamaica Plain Cohousing (JPC), has written up her
experiences on her attempts to get cohousing going before it finally
clicked with the formation of JPC.  She mentioned similar procedures as
others (presentations at local venues, mentions in local media with
follow-ups thereafter, formation of local networks meeting regularly at
local locations -- which nowadays could also be done via Meetup and
Facebook, etc.).  However, she also mentioned how such groups would *not*
flourish, a couple of which I copy here, so you can do the reverse.  Don't
worry if it feels discouraging, she and Dave eventually got something to
click on the third try, and JPC is here to prove it!

Regards,
David Heimann
Jamaica Plain Cohousing



____________________________________________
Some time in late July this initial group fell apart. The initial
cohousing "core group" consisted of three households, but it never
really did jell as a core group. The members were never able to put
together a mission statement because the members were not on the same
wavelength. One of the households wanted to buy a house within 6
months, another household was thinking maybe five years down the
road, and Dave & Diane were hoping for something to come together
within 2 years.

____________________________________________

Dave & Diane went out on their own after that and tried to start
another group. They attracted a group of seven or eight regulars at
meetings, but it never got past the discussion-group stage. As Diane
looked back on it, she saw that the group members had too many
disparate philosophies pulling them apart, and there wasn't one
strong leader who could stand up and say "Look, this is what we're
going to do, and if you share this philosophy, you should become a
member of the core group, and if you don't you should form another
group." One person wanted us to build cohousing in an extremely
expensive area of Jamaica Plain. Another member of the group was a
realtor who lived in a neighboring town but wanted to move back to
Jamaica Plain. He was a friend of the person who wanted to do
cohousing in an extremely expensive section of JP, and he knew it
would never fly, but didn't want to say so openly for fear of hurting
his friend's feelings. There was an extremely low-income person in
the group who would have to get some a government subsidy in order to
buy any kind of housing, even a1-bedroom condominium. There were a
couple of people who wanted to buy a big old Victorian (there's lots
of those in JP) and renovate it. There was a person from another area
of Boston who was very keen on living in cohousing, but who was
always traveling around the country and who could hardly ever attend
meetings.

____________________________________________

That was in May of 1997. That group didn't go anywhere, partly
because the people who joined weren't really committed, and partly
because it was an extremely fast -track proposal. What it was, was a
set of three apartment buildings in Roslindale center that were being
put up for sale by the owner, because he was tired of doing property
management. It was PERFECT for cohousing -- the houses were clustered
around a little green, it was right near Roslindale center, it was
right near the commuter railā-- but the owner wanted the whole deal
completed within 6 months. This was too fast for a cohousing group.
They couldn't get enough people together quickly enough to raise the
cash that the owner wanted.




Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2015 12:42:29 -0700
From: Tiffany Lee Brown <magdalen23 [at] gmail.com>
To: "cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Subject: [C-L]_ Best ways to seek collaborators?
Message-ID: <1A43C296-3089-45AA-AAB9-56D98D800AC1 [at] gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;       charset=us-ascii


What would you experienced co-housers recommend as a way to connect with
people who might be interested in starting a community?

Thanks...

Tiffany
In Oregon


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