Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: finding members

[jackie wallis (wallis]

  > I am asking the list for any examples of fliers or newspaper
  > advertisements or anything to get this group going. Do I have 
  > to cough up a lot of money right away on advertising etc.?
  >
  > Any help with marketing in an extremely conservative market
  > would be greatly appreciated - because the attitude I am
  > getting around here is.."didn't free love end in the sixties?"
  >
  > Shelly DeMeo
  > Greater Hartford Cohousing
  > One committed family

I expected the same kind of reaction when I started my group here
in far-west Chicago suburbs last September and was astounded when
it didn't happen.  I now have a mailing list of 30+ people and have
a core-group of 8 households.  Wow!

I did several things:
1) Post fliers at my church.  Being a Unitarian-Universalist comes
   in handy sometimes, they don't consider cohousing weird at all.  :-)
2) Post announcement of new group forming on this email list.
3) Contact regional cohousing organization, get their mailing list
   and contact the people in my area, and also get into their
   newsletter.
4) Post fliers at bookstores (Border's and Barnes&Noble) and the
   biggest draw has been the flier in Whole Foods Market (huge
   health food store).   Make sure to incude definition of cohousing
   on your flier since most people don't know what it is.
5) I've also had my meetings at Border's in their Cafe area.  Since
   I arranged this thru their managers they included the meetings
   in their monthly calendar of events.
6) And what made the group real was a pot-luck at my house.  I mailed
   an announcement to all the names I had, inviting them all.  I
   asked them to RSVP and let me know what kind of dish they were
   bringing (entree, veggie, salad, etc).  Then a couple days before
   the pot-luck I called them all.  It seemed the dish idea really
   helped cut down on last minute cancellations because they knew
   they were bringing only one salad, or whatever.  I had 19 adults
   and 8 kids show up to the house.  WOW!!

So, the DuPage Cohousing Association is officially off the ground,
with the first core-group meetings starting this week to decide if
we are cohesive enough in our vision to build one community or if 
we need to split into more.  I figure the more the merrier, and since
90% of the work is the same we might as well do it together.

I'll keep you posted!
Jackie Wallis
Burning Soul of
DuPage Cohousing Association