Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Community Contacts

[Cheron Dudley (cherondudley]

We are in the middle of selling a house here in Quimper Village (Port
Townsend, WA) and have been giving individual tours to interested folks.
Actually, these individual tours have been pretty constant all summer here.
We have 2 email addresses for the public to use….one via our website and
another via our newsletter. Two different people monitor these and usually
respond within a few days.
 If a request for a tour comes in, it’s sent to the 3 people currently on
board for giving tours. So far, so good.
Cheron at QV

On Tue, Sep 7, 2021 at 12:14 PM Chris Hansen <itschrishansen [at] gmail.com>
wrote:

> I know that our community info person would say Amen to that! She works
> full time, is doing a PhD, and has a family.
> People often just want a conversation, which is understandable, and those
> in the community who are willing workers are pretty stretched with
> Community tasks. (It would be interesting to do a poll of how much work
> people anticipated CoHousing would involve when they arrived, and whether
> it met or exceeded their expectations!)
> Some of us work demanding jobs, some are elderly, some live with
> disability, some have families, some are working their butts off for
> CoHousing- and the normal combo of all/some/none of the above.
> We had open homes before Covid- we've not mastered the art of doing it
> online.
> Some people don't like to do it and it would be great to find folks who
> like it; are good at it,and who have the time!
> And, as Elizabeth so eloquently said, it would be _wonderful_ to understand
> what about CoHousing piques people's interest- so we could tailor our
> response.
> When people write and say 'can I come at 4pm on xx date' it's just not that
> easy to find someone who is able to oblige, because nobody is employed to
> do this job.
> I'd love to know if some communities have elegant modes of managing and
> navigating this. The 'Open House' was a great scheme when it worked.
>
> On Tue, 7 Sept 2021 at 09:55, Elizabeth Magill <pastorlizm [at] gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I would like to share the other side of this story.
> >
> > I handle my community's "info" email list. People go to our website which
> > has tabs for all of our community agreements, what is cohousing,
> > descriptions of who lives here, a picture of our site, a tab showing
> which
> > homes are for sale (none), and more and more.
> > I think we do a really good job of describing our community, to the
> extent
> > that community can be described in words and pictures.
> >
> > And I get emails every week that are "can you tell me about  your
> > community?" with absolutely no other information as to why they are
> > interested. I'm like---sure, what do you want to know?
> >
> > And then I get long emails, often two pages, that read like they are
> trying
> > to earn a spot in our community. With no question, or with can I come
> work
> > for you for awhile, or "do I qualify". Again, I want to ask, did you read
> > the website at all before you hit "contact"?
> >
> > And of course the spam. And people who want to do studies.
> >
> > I reply to everything except the spam (I forward the studies to the
> > community in case someone wants to engage.) Sometimes I miss one.
> >
> > We offer tours (but surely folk could give some idea of when they want to
> > come?) and keep an interest-list for when a home is available for sale.
> >
> > I think it is worth it to keep up this task because a quarter or a fifth
> of
> > the emails are from people who have thoughtfully shown interest. It is
> our
> > goal to be open to promoting cohousing and to be welcoming of potential
> > cohousers.
> >
> > And yes, sometimes responses take longer than a week. Sometimes I'm on
> > vacation. Sometimes I've got a busy week at work. Sometimes I just can't
> > read anymore email.
> >
> > But mama mia it's work that takes more time than you would imagine.
> >
> > -Liz
> > (The Rev. Dr.) Elizabeth Mae Magill
> > Pastor, Ashburnham Community Church
> > www.mosaic-commons.org
> > www.elizabethmaemagill.com
> > 508-450-0431
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Sep 4, 2021 at 11:10 AM Jack & Carolyn Salmon <
> > 2salmon [at] earthlink.net>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I’ve had the same experiences as Ann, when trying to contact some one,
> > any
> > > one at a cohousing community.  You have to be a real sleuth to find
> > someone
> > > to have a conversation with…by phone or on-line.  Even if a community
> has
> > > an email address or phone number listed in the Cohousing US directory,
> no
> > > one seems to be monitoring them.
> > >
> > > I live at Quimper Village…we do monitor our emails and phone answering
> > > machine AND we try to respond to all calls …well, not the robo-calls
> from
> > > the guy who designs webpages.    The person who monitors may respond or
> > > passes the message on to the member most likely to have a productive
> > > conversation with the caller.
> > >
> > > Let’s keep the conversations going.
> > >
> > > Carolyn
> > >
> > _________________________________________________________________
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> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> Chris Hansen
> 32 East Village Drive
> Burlington
> Vermont 05401
> USA
>
> Ph 603 3988730
> _________________________________________________________________
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>
>
>
> --
Cheron