Cohousing-L Mailing List: What importance is the group name? (was Re: the politics of co-h)

[Stephen W . Thompson (thompson]

Laura Bagnall wrote:
> [...]  The one decision that has been totally unresponsive to
> this process is deciding on a new name for our group! [....]
> We have had a number of
> discussions about names, and we always end up coming up with a
> long list of name, and no consensus on what name we should
> choose.

Nancy Wight (wight [at] wal.hp.com) replied:
> We at New View had this same problem.  [....]
> But every
> time someone brings up the "name issue", people groan and
> act as if they *really* don't want to deal with it!  

I don't understand the significance that the group name has to your
two groups.

If I've read Laura and Nancy postings correctly, the name of their
groups (and the *right* name) has a lot of importance to the groups.
I can partially understand this, since I the name will be associated
with the first contact new participants might have with the cohousing
group.  I can guess it's partly seen as related to recruitment, since
different people might be attracted to a different name.  Is this one
of the reasons name choosing is hard?  Or something else?

However, the name doesn't matter too much to me.  Now, I'm only at the
stage of investigating a group to see if I'm interested in it, and
that lack of commitment certainly gives me a different perspective
than people who are ready to build or already moved in.  Still, to me
it's the people and the land and the buildings and the group dynamics
that defines the group, rather than the name.

Other opinions welcomed.

En paz,
Steve
--
Stephen W. Thompson, U. of PA, Data Administration, 215-898-1236
thompson [at] pobox.upenn.edu -OR- st [at] eniac.seas.upenn.edu
   URL: http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~st/st.html