Cohousing-L Mailing List: Resending of " Governance: Att: Southside, Nyland, & Sharingwood", plus response to Mac Thomson

[Monty Berman (mberman]

On Mon, 20 May 1996, Denise Meier and/or Michael Jacob wrote:

> (Monty), your message came through so garbled with odd characters that 
it was
> pretty hard to read. Perhaps you could send it again? Seems your tabs,
> carriage returns and apostrophes got translated into numeric strings....
> 
> Denise Meier
> Sebastopol, CA 
> 
RESENDING OF MESSAGE FOLLOWS

from Monty Berman, First Resident Group, EcoVillage at ithaca

        As per Mac Thomson's reference to "consolidation of committees" 
that Southland, Nyland, & Sharingwood moved towards, I'd like to know 
what committees were specifically consolidated as well as any 
elaborations on how this has worked out.
        Responding to a couple of Mac's question requests, in our First 
Resident Group (FRG), we get the jobs done by having formed basic 
committees (e.g., Finance, Process, Steering, Energy, Land Use, 
Landscaping) and then form many short term and/or ad hoc ones as the need 
arises (e.g., House Rules, Appliances (for CH), Furnishings (CH), 
Construction Contract, etc.). These are all filled by on  a volunteer, 
self-selecting basis so that those interested in a particular area wind 
up on it for the most part. This seems to me to be working fairly 
well---though I see a degree of over extension on the part of those who do 
a lot on a committee and are on two or more of them.
        As far as average number of hrs at mtgs (since we are now in the 
first 25% period of construction, these remarks pertain to construction 
and preconstructioon only---5 yrs), I would estimate that the 30 
individuals who attend fairly regularly might come about 80% of the time. 
We have 2 four hr general mtgs every month, but the joker is that we also 
have months with 3 or 4 general mtgs, as we have had in March, April, and 
May this year (and it's possible this was so in Jan and Feb also!). Of 
course, the above does NOT include committee mtgs or related events, 
e.g., community building.

Monty