Cohousing-L Mailing List: Update series/Synergy {Cascade/Sharingwd}

[THESHLIFE (THESHLIFE]

This is the first time I've written to the L in a very long time. My mental
energy has increased substantial amounts in the last few weeks.  We have
begun our design process, which is totally awesome. (Synergy)

I read the updates from Cascade in Tasmania and Sharingwood in Seattle.  Ian,
Rob. . . thanks.  I can't tell you how great it is to hear all the wonderful
things that are happening in cohousing around the world.  -Rob, I've to come
and see the commonhouse.  I saw the pad and one wall when I was there last
year. -

Synergy Update :::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Kate McCamant left our site last Sunday (5/19),  taking with her our site
plan and commonhouse programs.  We will have a finished site plan and
commonhouse floor plan design by the first of the month.

The abutting community to our site may not view us as a commune incorporating
philosophy from the Branch Davidians and the Freemen, may actually be seeing
as somewhat normal and intelligent people.  

We gave a seminar in their 'clubhouse' a month ago.  That is when they
treated us like the satanic cult.  Because of an issue that regards a shared
fence, we met with the households that properties actually about ours.  Kate
even joined us for the event. Some of them were open enough to really begin
to understand what cohousing is 'really' all about.  Two of the households
became actually became interested in what we were doing. Hooray for the power
of community!

We made the front page!  The Miami Herald published a front page article on
our community in all three of it's additions.  A circulation of over half a
million, not including it's national distribution. The article included a
color picture of my wife Corey and B&W photo of Christine ( Hoskin).  Killer,
huh? One would expect to get a hundred of so calls? Nope, but we did get
about 30 calls on our voice mail.  

The following week we had one of our monthly seminars, but this time Kate
McCamant was a speaker.  We usually have between 2 and 6 people show up at
them. This time over 40 showed up, fueled by the Herald article and Kate's
presence.  We invited people to look at our site following the event. About
12 showed up.  All very interested in community and Synergy.

South Florida is a very strange market.  We've known this for quite some
time.  We've heard of the stories about a community putting an ad in a local
health food magazine and getting all of their members from it.  We now have 6
households, but that was mainly due to the charrette.  We've been on the
front page of the area's two largest newspapers. One with national
distribution.  We've got calls, but not a lot.  We've determined that they
only way people in this area are going to sign up, is to know 'what it looks
like and how much it costs'.  Bottom line.  South Florida is transient and
has a fragmented range of culture.  It just doesn't have the centrally
located, cultural centers and the people of higher levels of thinking as does
communities in New York, California, Colorado, Ontario and British Columbia.
 

We're extremely confident that once we know 'what it looks like and how much
it costs' we'll get the members we need to start building, and to fill our
proposed 32 households.

There's no bout a doubt it. Synergy Cohousing will be the most comprehensive
community in Florida and elsewhere.  We call ourselves a sustainable
cohousing community that makes sense.

There is now doubt that Synergy will be a  role model for international
mainstream and cohousing community alike. 

Comments welcome.
Gary 954-921-0434
the shlife [at] aol.com

PS - We need communities to unite with us in DC at the World Futurist Society
Conference July 13 - 18. It's us and Liberty Village working a booth for the
event.