Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: How does your community handle internal communications?

[Sean Davey (sean]

Hi Lorne,
at my community we use a website that I wrote that handles internal email lists 
for the community and all of our various teams and committees. It also has a 
"news feed" that is very similar to facebook, for posting thoughts, pictures, 
recipes, documents, etc. I host websites for other communities with the same 
features for free. If you'd like more info, please check out 
http://cohousing.site
I'd also really like to hear about what features your community would like to 
have. I'm always working on improving the sites and would love to help with 
needs that aren't met by other sites.
best,
  sean
> Greetings from Vancouver Cohousing, an urban Canadian community of 53
> adults and 22 children in 31 units that completed in February. We are
> examining how best to organize our internal communications so people feel
> they know what's happening in the community. We'd appreciate learning from
> other communities. Currently we have:
> 
>    - A Google group email that goes to everyone and everyone can post to.
>    Residents often comment that there's too much email. We use SLO (Subject
>    Line Only) messages in the subject line when possible to ease the burden.
>    - A private Facebook group that most members belong to, but some members
>    just don't want to deal with Facebook.
>    - A sheet of announcements from our committees and teams prepared before
>    our monthly community meetings.
> 
> 
> I did a monthly digital newsletter while we were under development, and am
> thinking now of a weekly one. We've talked about installing a bulletin
> board in the common house that we intend to curate so it's effective. There
> are of course the everyday interactions in our homes, the courtyard and
> common meals.
> 
> Your thoughts would be much appreciated.
> 
> Thank you,
> Lorne Mallin