Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: out-of-state members <FWD>

[RAYGASSER (RAYGASSER]

EcoVillage at Ithaca (upstate NY) has many out-of-towners. Actually, not true 
any longer. My family is currently the only one not
not living in Ithaca. Several families have moved to Ithaca to part of it.
People have come from St. Louis, Santa Cruz (CA), Buffalo, Cape Cod, Pittsburgh
Boston, and we have one possibly from Germany.

My family will be moving up as soon as the town approves the site plan/zoning.
We live in NJ and over the 3 years that EVI has been in concept/planning,
we've made the 4-hour drive up to Ithaca every month between 1 and 4 times 
for meetings.

True, we don't make it to group meetings during the week, or participate in
the co-dining groups that have been set up (members couldn't wait until we 
built to start eating together), but there are plenty of things distant
members can do. Lots of research projects can be done at a distance. We
can certainly bone up on the many environmental initiatives that EVI (and
many other groups) will be incorporating.

And don't discount the value of telephones/faxes/computers/net. People can
keep in touch pretty easily these days.

I must admit that sometimes I think we have it a little easier than those
who live in the trenches all the time, but we'll be in them too, soon.

Ray & Maria Gasser, Maplewood, NJ
raygasser [at] delphi.com