Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing communities with Sociocracy enshrined in Declaration / Bylaws?

[Ted J Rau (ted]

On this point, Jerry Koch-Gonzalez did a webinar on governance agreements a
while ago and we recorded it. You can view it here:
https://www.sociocracyforall.org/governance-agreement-workshop-recording/

On Mon, Aug 30, 2021 at 11:00 PM Diana Leafe Christian <diana [at] ic.org> 
wrote:

> I attended the wonderful Cohousing Through Time Conference yesterday. In
> Jerry Koch-Gonzalez's session on applying sociocracy in existing
> communities, we learned that when Cambridge Cohousing switched from
> consensus to sociocracy it simply replaced the word "consensus" with the
> word "consent" in its ByLaws. So easy!
>
> Jerry also noted that there are three official documents many cohousing
> communities have: their ByLaws, CC&Rs, and a Policy Manual. A Policy Manual
> can include information about the group's governance and decision-making
> method. In which case the ByLaws can say about the group's governance, "See
> Policy Manual." So when a group changes from consensus to sociocracy they
> only have to change their Policy Manual, not their ByLaws.
>
> This is the same advice a cohousing lawyer gave me when I was writing
> Creating a Life Together. She also suggested creating a Policy Manual, and
> including the phrase in the ByLaws, "See Policy Manual" for anything the
> forming community might want to change someday. So any future changes would
> be simple, as compared to the hassle and expense required to change ByLaws.
>
> Little things like this can make all the difference!
>
> Diana Leafe Christian
>
> > On Aug 28, 2021, at 7:08 PM, Lauren Lake <laurenlake161 [at] gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Green Grove Cohousing has Dynamic Governance written into our Bylaws. We
> trained our original members (+ new arrivals) using courses and coaching
> from Sociocracy for All.
> >
> > Lauren Lake
> >
> > ———————-
> > Are you aware of any cohousing communities which use Sociocracy / Dynamic
> >
> > Governance, are incorporated as a condominium and:
> >
> >
> >
> > 1. who have included references to Sociocracy in the Condo Declaration,
> >
> > CC&Rs, Bylaws and/or Strata Agreements; or
> >
> > 2. who use Sociocracy without referencing it in the Condo Declaration,
> >
> > CC&Rs, Bylaws and/or Strata Agreements
> >
> >
> >
> > Our community is in the development phase (about to start pouring slabs!)
> >
> > and our Development Company incorporates Sociocracy directly in the
> >
> > Shareholders Agreement. This has worked well for us, and we plan to
> >
> > continue using Sociocracy after move-in. Ideally we would like to learn /
> >
> > borrow from other communities rather than reinventing the wheel but when
> I
> >
> > searched the Cohousing-L archives, I didn't find any reference to
> cohousing
> >
> > condo communities who have built Sociocracy into their legal agreements.
> >
> > The discussions I found were Bylaws, the law and Sociocracy
> >
> > <http://lists.cohousing.org/archives/cohousing-l/msg37048.html> (2014)
> and
> >
> > a few others.
> >
> >
> >
> > We are also exploring this with https://www.sociocracyforall.org but so
> far
> >
> > have not had any pointers to communities who have included Sociocracy in
> >
> > their legal documents.
> >
> >
> >
> > Ideas and suggestions are welcome!
> >
> >
> >
> > cheers,
> >
> > Scott
> >
> > Treehouse Village Ecohousing
> >
> > Bridgewater, Nova Scotia
> >
> > (Under development)
> >
> > https://treehousevillage.ca
> >
> >
> >
> > P.S. I did find one example of a community which has incorporated
> >
> > Sociocracy into its legal documents: Cohabitat Quebec. Unfortunately the
> >
> > legal system in Quebec is quite different from the rest of Canada and the
> >
> > USA, so what they've done doesn't necessarily transfer well elsewhere.
> They
> >
> > appear to be constituted as a condominium which delegates all management
> >
> > authority to a co-op
> >
> > <
> https://mk0sociocracyfo3pi1v.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Cohabitat-Quebec-case-study.pdf
> >,
> >
> > and the coop has sociocracy written into their bylaws. See
> >
> > https://www.cohabitat.ca/rejoindre-cohabitat/ (and brush up on your
> French,
> >
> > or use Google Translate) for regulatory documents for both the condo and
> >
> > co-op.
> >
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> >
>
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