Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: [SURVEY] How do you communicate in your community?

[David Mencher (menchers]

Dear Craig,

In our fledgling cohousing community-in-progress, (approx 40 members and
another 15 prospective members), we have instituted a communications
committee to interface between individual members and boards/committees.
We encourage Bcc for large mailings, and try to limit the number of
mailings per week to 2.

In this day and age, most of our members already suffer from email
overload, and we have taken these steps in order to avoid a situation where
community emails get disregarded.

So far, it's working.  We also have both a public and members-only fb page.

Good luck
David
CoHousing Israel (CHI)

On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 5:40 AM, Craig R. Wright <crw [at] crw.xyz> wrote:

>
> Hello Fellow Co-housers!
>
> I would like to know how you communicate within your communities. I am
> particularly interested in problems or dissatisfactions you have with your
> communication tools.
>
> As a template, I would like to know about your methods of communication in
> these high-level areas:
>
> * All-community discussions and announcements
> * Committee discussions and coordination
> * Meals (menu announcements and sign-ups)
>
> Please reply directly to me. Any additional information you would like to
> provide is welcome.  As an example, here are my answers for Swans Market
> Co-housing (speaking for myself, not the community):
>
> ——
> * Community discussions, announcements, and social sharing happen in email
> on a special mailing list. Disagreements are resolved outside of email,
> either 1:1 or at the HOA. Problems: works well, but sometimes it is hard to
> find what is relevant, as in what is an urgent request vs a link someone is
> sharing from Facebook. Also, sometimes disagreements do happen in email,
> and require intervention to de-escalate (usually just a reminder of our
> email practices). Tone and emotion can be difficult to judge (easy to
> misjudge) in email.
>
> * Committee meeting coordination happens in email (mailing lists),
> otherwise all discussions happen in person at the committee meetings.
> Problems: in my opinion, as a result of the lack of willingness to discuss
> smaller issues via email, we miss opportunities to coordinate and resolve
> issue between meetings.
>
> * Meals announcements happen on a paper sheet, signups on the same paper
> sheet. The schedule is managed with a big paper calendar. Problems: as a
> pre-millenial, the non-digital calendar makes it hard for me to plan and
> schedule to be at meals. :)
> ——
>
> THANK YOU VERY MUCH for even reading this far, and an extra special thanks
> if you choose to participate.
>
> Why? I am doing market research for a product. I am working on this
> independently, I do not represent an established company, just myself. The
> product concept is a group messenger focused on private, asynchronous
> conversations within friendly communities. It occurred to me that
> co-housers are potentially an ideal audience. I have interviewed all
> different types of people, including members of my community, but I hadn't
> thought to interview co-housers more broadly. So, I’m doing that now! :)
> Any questions or comments welcome.
>
> Thanks, and be well,
> Craig Wright
>
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-- 

David Mencher
08-9266104
https://www.facebook.com/GypsySwingIsrael?ref=stream