Mandatory Participation in Common Meals Survey Results | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Fred-List manager (fholsoncohousing.org) | |
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2016 04:56:15 -0800 (PST) |
Mac Thomson <macthomson [at] me.com> is the author of the message below. It was posted by Fred, the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org> after putting survey results (in two formats) at: http://l.cohousing.org/common-meals-survey-2016.pdf http://l.cohousing.org/common-meals-survey-2016.xls -------------------- FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS -------------------- Last week I sent a survey to coho-l to see if other communities had mandatory participation in their common meals system. Here’s the survey I sent: SURVEY Does your community require members to participate in common meal preparation and/or clean up (yes or no)? How many common meals per week do you have? On a scale of 1 - 10, how successful are your common meals? (1 = very disappointing, pretty much sucks; 10 = super fantastic, amazing) On a scale of 1 - 10, how cohesive is your community? (1 = very disappointing, pretty much sucks; 10 = super fantastic, amazing) What are the best things about your common meal program? What are the worst things about your common meal program? Other comments? I received 17 responses. Thank you to all the respondents! I’ve attached my compilation of the results as both pdf and Excel files. I wasn’t sure if everyone would be able to open an Excel file. There were some additional comments that don’t show up on the pdf compilation that I’m happy to share. A typical example would be when someone gives a numerical rating for their meal program and then goes on to explain the rating. The pdf compilation just shows the rating. The Excel file has the additional comments included as cell comments. I’ll review my conclusions for each survey question. Does your community require members to participate in common meal preparation and/or clean up (yes or no)? 2 - Yes 15 - No The thing that really struck me about this question was what a gray area it is. What does mandatory mean? One “Yes” response indicated a meal system like ours. If you choose to participate in meals, you must participate in meal prep. One “No” response indicated that overall work was required, but cooking was just one form of work. One “No” response said that it was “strongly encouraged”, but their community was afraid of making it difficult to get mortgages so they don’t “require” it. How many common meals per week do you have? Answers range from 1 - 5 with the average at about 2. There are a combination of potlucks and common meals. Communities that seem to be struggling with common meals seem to resort to potlucks. On a scale of 1 - 10, how successful are your common meals? (1 = very disappointing, pretty much sucks; 10 = super fantastic, amazing) Answers range from 5 - 10 with the average at about 8. I was hoping to see if mandatory meals were in any way correlated with common meal success, but because of the various ways people answered about whether their system was mandatory and also the extremely low sample size of “Yes” responses (2), I don’t think it makes any sense to draw any correlation conclusions. On a scale of 1 - 10, how cohesive is your community? (1 = very disappointing, pretty much sucks; 10 = super fantastic, amazing) Answers range from 5 - 9 with the average at about 7. Again, I don’t think it makes any sense to draw any correlation conclusions. One thing I would conclude from reading the comments that came along with the scores, community cohesiveness is not something you can take for granted. Many communities struggle with a variety of issues. What are the best things about your common meal program? I think the main responses were about being able to enjoy really good food in a great social setting. Also mentioned frequently were the community building nature of the meals and the good systems communities use for getting the meals work done and tracking costs. What are the worst things about your common meal program? I think the main responses were about low participation at meals and/or difficulty of getting enough cooks and cleaners resulting in meals getting canceled. Also mentioned several times was the challenge of cooking for lots of different food needs. Other comments? Many interesting comments about different meal systems, but no single common thread that I could pull out. Cheers, Mac -- Mac Thomson Heartwood Cohousing Southwest Colorado http://www.heartwoodcohousing.com "Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together." - Marilyn Monroe **********************************************************
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