Cohousing-L Mailing List: A special word of thanks from Graham Meltzer

[Cohousing-L listmgr (fholson]

Graham Meltzer g.meltzer [at] qut.edu.au 
is the author of the message below but due to a problem it was posted 
by the Fred the list manager: owner-cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org
********************  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS ***********************

I (Graham) thought I'd sent this earlier ... but it failed to show up
amongst my coho-l digests .... so am trying again with apologies if it's a
repeat posting.

It's a measure, it seems to me, of our 'sense of (the cohousing) community'
... that I can feel it's appropriate to broadcast to the list ... a
personal and heartfelt thank-you for all the kindness and goodwill I've
experienced in the last three months of living amongst Nth American
communities.

A brief explanation ....

I am an Australian cohousing researcher (and would-be cohouser). Since
September when I arrived in Amherst, MA, I have visited about 18 cohousing
communites in the US and Canada, spending typically 2-3 days in each ...
surveying and interviewing residents and documenting the architecture and
site planning. The work went well ... but more significantly, I have made
wonderfull friends, enjoyed beautiful residential environments, been in awe
of the sophistication of group process ... and generally been moved and
inspired by the quality of the human relationships I've noted exist in
cohousing communities.

Thank you one and all.

We, (my partner Jane joined me for the last month of the trip) flew back
yesterday to tropical weather, our gorgeous teenage daughters and about
3000 email messages. I will endevour in the near future to re-establish
email contact with friends, but wish to let everyone know I'm back in
Australia and have reverted to my regular email address
(g.meltzer [at] qut.edu.au) should anyone wish to contact me.

The data I have gathered is still vey raw ... but it is voluminous, and
will be statistically meaningfull given the 80% response rate to the
survey. I am really looking forward to processing the forms and seeing what
emerges. I hope to quickly feed back to the communities I visited, results
pertaining to them and to make general findings available via the cohousing
network and the journal. I will also post to this list as time allows.

Best wishes to you all

Graham

Graham Meltzer
School of Architecture, Interior and Industrial Design
Queensland University of Technology
Brisbane, Australia
ph (617) 3864 2535