Cohousing-L Mailing List: Nancy's Conference Report, Part 1

[Nancy E Wight (wight]

Like Pablo said, here's a short version and I'll post more later when I get 
my notes into electronic form.

We attended the meeting of "Burning Souls" at Nyland on Friday.  It was 
great to meet a lot of people I have only heard about or exchanged e-mail 
with - some, I'm sorry to say, from my own backyard! When I met Rob Sandelin 
and Debbie Behrens, I felt like they were old friends.  All 80 of the 
participants introduced ourselves (we were supposed to take 30 seconds, but 
some cheated :) not me, of course! ) and we were asked to give our "heat 
rating" from 1 to 10 (get it, burning souls...sorry).  Anyway, there were 
lots of folks in the 6-10 range and a few below that.  

We broke into subgroups and I really enjoyed meeting with Rob, Pablo, and 
others who are interested in putting together lots of the collective 
knowledge of the various cohousing operations going on.  We discussed using 
Rob's Cohousing Resource Guide as a foundation, and expanding it, adding 
more information, cross-indices, etc.  In order to do this, we would need 
more people to help put it together and distribute it.  BTW, I gave out the 
cohousing-L address to lots of people, so expect a membership onslaught, 
Fred!

The main conference opened with a slide show of existing cohousing 
communities.  There, I ran into another old friend, Stuart Staniford-Chen.  
I'll spare him the embarrassment of describing his appearance (not that he 
has anything to be embarrassed about ;-) ), besides, I'll be getting those 
pictures developed and then everyone can see for themselves (but I can't 
resist mentioning that wonderful hint of an accent Stuart - is it English?). 
Anyway, back to the slide show.  What struck me the most about these is that 
almost everyone had pictures of the kids playing, and a few mentioned that 
cohousing is really kid heaven.  I talked to someone from Winslow who said 
her kids would never let the family move anywhere else except to another 
cohousing community, and she is glad more are being built, just in case she 
has to move.

I attended the workshop on conflict resolution, and what sticks with me most 
is something someone said about thinking of any given communication as a 
dance.  It appears that you are only dancing with that other person, but in 
reality, you are dancing with their mother, father, siblings, etc.  This may 
help you to look behind the words to the real meaning, and understand more 
about why that person feels the way they do.

Pablo and I gave Dorit Fromm (author of Collaborative Communities), Don 
Lindemann (Editor of the Cohousing Journal) and Rob Sandelin (cohousing-L 
participant extraordinaire) a ride to dinner and got a little lost.  Sorry I 
was driving like a Boston driver folks!  I was trying really hard not to.

Well, I'm losing it.  Time to go to sleep.  Here are a few general 
impressions:

1.  We are not ALONE!  This is really a *movement*.  Others talked knowingly 
about the phase called "Development Hell" and gave each other support.

2.  People were very open and willing to share everything they knew.  
There's a tremendous spirit of cooperation between cohousing groups.

More later...

- Nancy


Nancy Wight                                   wight [at] world.std.com
New View Neighborhood Development             Acton, MA