Cohousing-L Mailing List: community management

[BuckRog (BuckRog]

Greetings Co-housers,
I'm writing from Pioneer Vally Co-housing about administration issues.  WE
are currently debating new ways of handling responsibilities.  For example,
the community is running now with a monthly general meeting and many
different committees to deal with various aspects of community life (kitchen,
common house maintenance, buildings and grounds, children, etc.) there are 19
active committees.            Two suggestions have arisen for possible
changes in this structure.  The first arises from a structure someone in our
community saw in Denmark, which was that the community was divided into small
work teams that divided up the larger responsibilites of the community.  We
are considering a move to this model.
The second change is the adoption of a steering committee to oversee the
overall functioning of the community.  The committee would have a
coordinating and reporting  function only and would have no decision making
power.
These changes are in response to a perception within the community that some
oversight might serve us well and to a general overload of committee
activity.
If any one has any thoughts or comments on this type of structure or has made
similar changes we would be glad to hear about your experiences.


Thanks 
Stephan Rogers
BuckRog [at] aol.com
Amherst MA