Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Clarity and Resolution

[J Rebecca Reid (jrreid]

Molly asked about confidentiality in regard to their "clarity and 
Resolution committee".  
        
Pioneer Valley has had a similar committee for 
most of its 6 or 7 years of existence.  First it was called the 
"Mediation Committee", then the "Mediation/Communication committee" 
and finally the "Community Support committee".  

This committee started out doing conflict resolutiion 
sessions between members--the first of which was done with the 
membership invited because we were a small group and the issues concerned 
all of us. We experimented with trying to find the most effective ways to do 
these sessions, and have tried lots of things, some more successful than 
others. Now we also schedule and plan regular whole group process meetings 
called the "Other Meeting", an idea we got from Caroline Estes who came 
to do a workshop on consensus decision making (I highly recommend it!).

Mediation sessions which are between individuals are not reported in any 
way to the community nor are there any records that I know of. There are 
no written notes on Other Meetings either.  We seem to err always on the 
side of confidentiality, given the choice. Of course, the grapevine is 
ever-present anyway...

Rebecca 
from Pioneer Valley/Cherry Hill/Someday to be named in Western Mass.