Cohousing-L Mailing List: Developer's Perspective on Coho

[Diane Simpson (dqs]

"For the people who really want something physical to happen, the
processing becomes very time consuming and frustrating, and they may drop
out if they don't see significant progress.  The people for whom processing
is the most important thing can feel pressured by the physical folks."
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I couldn't agree with you more, Randy. After a three-hour meeting with our
proto-group, we discovered that that was precisely what was happening to
us. Some of us felt we had studied cohousing long enough and we wanted to
get the show on the road, the others felt that more processing time was
needed. If you remember the "Barbecue Incident" we had, it turned out that
this was not so much as a disagreement over a date but a disagreement over
process. Those of us that wanted to push ahead were "rushing" the process
people, and they were not happy about it. But we managed to come to an
agreement, and it was a very valuable learning experience. We discovered
that we were really more akin to a "network" than a "group" at this point,
and so in order to clarify who we are to ourselves (and the rest of the
world) we have changed our name to "JP Cohousing NETWORK." The idea is that
we will function as a resource for people who are looking into cohousing in
the area south of Boston (i.e: Jamaica Plain, Brookline, Roslindale, Hyde
Park.)

As for me personally, I am still committed to developing a cohousing site
in Jamaica Plain. For personal reasons (one includes staying married!) I
cannot move away from here. I will continue to work with the
process-oriented-people, but when people are ready to move on to the next
phase they are welcome to join JP Cohousing GROUP, which will be a distinct
entity from the network.

By the way, where is The Community Development Collaborative?

                            ----Diane:.>

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