Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Making the big decision

[Glen Orcutt (gorcutt]

Dave Adams says:
>We have made an offer on this site and should hear from the owner any day 
>now.  We rushed through a consensus call at the end of a meeting that was 
>1/2 hour already past the scheduled end, which allowed our new Development 
>Mgmt committee to prepare and submit the offer.  The only other "vote" on 
>the site had 5 households excited about the site, 8 with reservations, 8 
>with serious reservations, and 1 full member holding a red card [ I wasn't 
>there; I think it was more of a "stand aside" than a "block consensus".  The 
>2 full member households there, including mine, would have added "serious 
>reservations" votes.]
>Any similar experiences?  Wisdom about how consensus process ought to affect 
>this decision? 

My experience has more to do with your process than the specific situation.
We have found that when we rushed through an important decision in one
meeting, without giving members time to sleep on it, talk about it in small
groups, etc. that we have had to revisit the decision later with a much
different (and better) result.  An agreement reached out of desparation does
not hold.

My advice is to leave enough contingencies in the contract to get out of it
easily and revisit it objectively next week.

Glen Orcutt
Valley Oaks Village
Chico, CA