Re: committees
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2019 09:49:21 -0700 (PDT)
Basically, you need buildings, grounds, community, and admin/legal. From there 
a group will form around any issue or opportunity that comes up. Beyond that I 
would be here all day making a list.

We have 3 teams set in the Bylaws — facilities, admin, and community. In my 
opinion, facilities is over whelmed and needs to be split between interior and 
exterior. By that I mean the large tasks take so much focus that smaller tasks 
just slide by. Rehabbing all the decks and balconies will take 2-3 years of 
research, bids, decisions, installation. In the meantime the fix for the 
potentially dangerous stairs to the basement is pushed farther and farther down 
the to-do list.

More important, I think is the structure that has evolved for task oriented 
groups. We have the 3 major teams and the board that are constant. Then we have 
Pods that are mostly constant — gardening/landscaping, kitchen, safety, etc. 
These form around people with an interest in leading who joins people together 
"to do this.” Pods are attached to teams, sort of. The amount of contact is 
varied. Gardening’s budget is in the facilities budget but otherwise has no 
contact. Other Pods may attend the Team meetings and work closely with them.

Then we have task forces and working groups that appear when there is  a 
specific task. A working group may take on research into Solar Panels and 
getting them installed. Task forces have been put together with volunteers at a 
community workshop where a more systemic problem has surfaced — firming up the 
consensus process, looking at how other communities handle workshare. Some last 
for years and others few months.

Then we have people who are “stars” on Jerry Koch-Gonzales’s sociocratic chart 
of circles. They hover around circles. The people who just do things 
individually (and fairly autocratically) like sorting the recycling, letting 
everyone know when rules change, and finds new trash companies when necessary. 
When he needs back up, he asks. 

We used to have a person who swept the sidewalks every 2 weeks or so. He was a 
star functioning on his own steam at his own pace on his own schedule.

The most important thing is to remember that your human capital will determine 
what clusters of activity you have. If there is a person with the drive to do 
something, great. You might end up with the beer brewing team. If there is no 
one, it won’t  be done, so hire it out — buy beer as needed. 

However, we also have a decision-making policy that makes the full membership 
the ultimate decider. And a structure of decisions that can be made with 
routine notice all the way to has to go to a meeting. So all these groups can 
form fairly freely but their decisions have to be run by the community and they 
have to work out any objections, conflicts, budget issues, etc.

Don’t spend too much time on it. It will evolve. I asked this question a few 
years ago and intended to summarize the responses. I was particularly 
interested suggesting circles in a sociocratic circle structure. Beyond the 3 
biggies, the variation was huge with unique names.

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





Results generated by Tiger Technologies Web hosting using MHonArc.