Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Paying and Accounting for meals.

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Dec 11, 2017, at 5:08 PM, Beverly Jones Redekop <beverly.jones.redekop 
> [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> they didn't know who would be at dinner and how
> noisy and crowded it would be.  We solved this by setting up dinner
> "clubs."  Some people belong to Monday supper club, Tuesday supper club,
> Thursday supper club, and/or they go to the "Wine-y Wednesday" adult
> potluck.  We let each supper club set its own rules

We also had a member who organized a “Dinner at Eight” meal that was held at 
8:00 on the first Thursday. The late hour guaranteed no children thus the 
opportunity to talk freely. There was a theme for each meal so even though it 
was a potluck the meal and decorations were focused. When the organizer left, 
however, no one picked it up.

At one point a loyal and frequent poster to the list, Rob Sandelin, said his 
family was not currently participating in meals because they had 40 children in 
the community and they all raced around. He said his children never ran around 
the dining room table at home but did in the CH. It was both a question of 
developing habits and having a quiet meal with conversation.

I’m an advocate of the responsibility of the community to raise the children to 
be civil and considerate. There are places to run around and allowing it at 
meals is not forming respectful or transferrable manners.

As one of our members said, “Whatever happened to inside voices and outside 
voices? Remember that?”

I’m afraid the answer was “no" for all the children and most of the parents who 
had young children.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org