Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: telecommuting

[Michael Forster (mforster]

Ray & Maria wrote
> Several of us cybernerds at EcoVillage (5 or 6 of us) are
> planning to wire the entire community for damn near everything
> (think we can convince those on very limited incomes of the value
> of becoming a node on the net?). Are other CoHo communities
> electronically networking their homes? Granted, it's a little
> less personal, warm & fuzzy than face-to-face, dinner-at-the-
> common-house interaction.

I live at the Findhorn Foundation, which is probably a little different from
the typical CoHo situation.  We are quite large and diverse (I recently wrote
a FAQ for the place, if anyone is interested) and so it has been a very
helpful step for us to create a LAN, with about 90 nodes.  I have noticed
that those of us on the net form a sort of 'community within the community.' 
We sell things to each other, announce when we are going away, arrange
childcare etc and that part of the community which is not connected, misses
out on some of that.  We have now installed a couple of machines in publicly
accessable places so that anyone in the community can keep in touch.  I think
we need to extend that as funds become available.

We don't seem to miss out on too much warm body contact, because we had to
have an extensive note sending system, anyway, to cope with all the
intra-community communications.  Having said that, I have found that if I
send an e-mail message to someone in the office next door, they sometimes
make pointed remarks about getting off my backside and going to see them!

My partner and I are also going to get our home computer connected as soon as
possible, so that we can browse the newsgroups and so on, late at night
without having to cycle back to my office.  We are both really looking
forward to it.

Michael Forster
Findhorn Foundation, The Park, FORRES  IV36 0TZ, Scotland
email: mforster [at] findhorn.org
Tel.: +44 309 690311
Fax.: +44 309 691301