Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: cohousing: paying members

[tommoench (tommoench]

2/24/94

Moji cohousing is one of the ten cohousing groups in the Puget 
Sound that Rob Sandelin refers to although he was only aware of one group;
that hired a member for work.  Rob is unaware of the numerous group members
that have worked for us.  I may be unaware of all of them as well.

#1 was hiring an architectural student and founding member to actually design
our project.  We were naive.  It worked out disastrously and tens of
thousands of dollars later we had to start over.  The problem was confusion
between the professional role as architect and the member role.

#2 was hiring an internal landscape architect.  That didn't work well either
for the same reason -- confusion between the member role and professional.

#3 was to hire a "community administrator" from within the community to
replace a contracted outside person who became ill -- the job was working on
the transition from an organization doing project development to a community
of residents.  She did an excellent job.

#4 was to hire a resident who is a technical writer to put together an
"Owner's Manual" explaining how our homes and their systems (e.g., heating,
electrical) work.  She did an excellent job as well.

#5 was to hire a resident part-time our help oversee warranty work and get
the bugs out of our physical systems.  This appears to be working well as
well.

Our meal system is voluntary but you have to work -- i.e. cook or clean -- to
get chits to attend meals.

Everything else is voluntary with expectations

Tom Moench
TomMOENCH [at] aol.com
The Moji community
(Home of the Winslow Cohousing Group)