Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Volunteer Guidelines for our community

[Linda Hobbet (coho]

Hi,

The Participation Team at Village Hearth Cohousing has been conducting 
research to get a better idea of how much time we actually put into 
maintaining and improving our community. We have asked our members to 
track how much time they actually spend over three months (March, July, 
and an upcoming month). We want to be able to give potential members a 
realistic idea of how much participation is expected of them.

We provide online (and printed) forms that track activities by teams in 
three categories - meetings, mental, and physical. We have one community 
meal per week with rotating cook squads (5 weeks and then a pot luck) 
and we tracked those hours separately. The forms are anonymous and the 
criteria for inclusion is that the time was contributed to the 
community, not individually neighbor to neighbor or community social 
time. Time is tracked by the quarter hour and anything less than 15 
minutes is counted as 15 minutes. Other than that, we let people decide 
what counts and how they classify their time.

We are a 55+ community of 34 adults in 28 households, 30 women and 4 
men. Only a few are still working, but we also have several members with 
long-term health/disability issues. We own 15 acres on the edge of 
Durham, NC, of which about 5 are developed. The homes are in 7 
buildings, 4 each. Everything is single level. We do most of the work 
ourselves. Being older, most of us are slower than we once were :-).

We have 15 teams and a few short-term interest groups working on 
specific projects. Plenaries are held once or twice a month and last up 
to 2 hours. Most members attend, so that accounts for a significant 
amount of time.

It takes more time than you expect. Our median is around 25 hours per 
month. The normal range is from 15 to 30 hours. Our community-wide time 
is fairly evenly divided between meetings, mental, and physical activities.
> Do we want to more specificallly quantify how much everyone should contribute 
> in terms of hours?
We don't. We recognize that our abilities, interests, and commitments 
vary. There is simply an expectation and most of our members are involved
> Do we want to keep track of hours? If not hours, what do we need to keep track 
> of? How? Will we make records available all the time?
We don't track hours (other than this project, which kept records 
anonymous). Our Participation Team is pretty new, but we are very clear 
our job is to encourage participation, help members find ways to 
contribute, and match teams with members if needed. We are not the 
participation police, which I think would only foster resentment.
> What work counts? Does all work have equal value?
See above for what we consider community contributions. All work is equal.
> Is it okay to contribute money in place of labor? Should there be limitations 
> on that?
We have not tried this, though a few want us to explore the possibility. 
I would be very wary of it. If done, I think the hourly amount should be 
based on how much it would cost to hire someone to do the work.
> How will we navigate tension over perceptions of uneven contribution
It will bother some people more than others. We haven't addressed this 
directly but it will probably be the subject of a community discussion 
at some point. You just have to foster a culture of understanding that 
what people are capable of contribute will vary over time.
> Should children be expected to contribute?
We don't have children here but, if we did, I would want then to be 
involved at levels and tasks appropriate to their ages. Good for them 
and good for the community.

We moved in during the middle of COVID in 2020. Some advice for your new 
community. Be patient. Everything takes longer than you expect, but the 
end result is better if you take the time. Early on we tried to cram too 
much into our plenaries, which created a lot of stress and conflict. Now 
we rarely schedule more than one topic per plenary and we put a 
significant amount of time into being sure the topics are ready and 
points of conflict have been identified in advance. By now, our the 
community has approved the aims and domains for all our teams, most 
policies have been approved, and procedures are being documented. Our 
budget process this year and last was very smooth. Plenaries are no 
longer stressful. Everything is working better, but it took time. We are 
putting more time into community discussions and educating everyone.

Party on and best wishes,
Linda Hobbet

PS. We use sociocracy.

--
VillageHearthCohousing.com
706-202-7178
coho [at] lindahobbet.com

"When you plant a seed of love, it is you that blooms.”
                                                   Ma Jaya