Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: cooking rosters

[Graham Meltzer (g.meltzer]

Angie writes

>Anyway, I would appreciate any ideas on cooking rosters, and examples of
>how it works elsewhere (or doesn't work) etc, so I can work out a few
>options for the Cascade members to deliberate on and decide what suits us
>best.
>Does the number of times you cook depend on how often you eat (or vice
>versa), or are there other ways of making this fair?
>What does "fair" mean anyway?

A fair system I beleive takes account of individual differences and builds
in enough flexibility to allow for the day-to-day changes of circumstance
that life throws at us. It would be easy enough to draw up a rigid roster
which required all people to equally contribute to food preparation ... eg
one night per week or for a week once every three months. This would be
clear, predictable and easy to administer ... but not in my view, equitable.
Some people might want to cook more, others might hate cooking, people have
different daily routines etc etc. Still to my knowledge, that's how most
cohousing groups operate.

In one Danish community I found a system working with complete flexibility
and much less predictabilty. It was voluntary! A novel idea eh? People put
their name to a monthly list, usually in pairs, to cook the evening meal for
about thirty. They would do so for times they knew would suit them,
sometimes weeks in advance, often only a few days prior to the event. Of
course sometimes, no-one signed up ... occassionally some days went by
without a common meal ... but soon enough people would be moved to start
them up again as they missed the social contact of mealtime.

In the dining hall was a board with hooks on which everyone had a tag.
People were required to say the night before, or early the same day, whether
they were coming to dinner. They would do this by turning their tag around,
green side up. So the cooking crew knew how many to cater for. A particular
token then represeted credit for cooking. When people came for dinner they
placed a token on the board over their name tag. The tokens were collected
by the cooks for future use ... so if they collected thirty tokens, they
would use them for fifteen future meals each if they were a pair, or ten
each if there were three etc. People who didn't cook much or at all, paid
money ot offset the cost of the ingredients. 

There are many subtle implications of this system which I don't have time to
go into now. I'm sure you'll all have questions and doubts about it. And
sure, it's potentially unworkable. A lot depends on group cohesion and
committment. But it does have flexibility and does accommodate personal
differences. It's messy, loose and variable ... but hey! isn't life like that.

Cheers
Graham Meltzer