Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: paying for sweat equity

[Rowena Conkling (rowenac]

To what extent do you consider work other than physical labor to be "sweat
equity"  (a funny term since there is no equit involved!)?  For instance, is
keeping up the community web-page, labor? What about child care supervision?
Management board duties?  Acting as community facilitators?

We've had a lot of trouble dealing with this issue and finally concluded that
some people were happy worker bees, some were resigned worker bees, and some
were drones, and there wasn't much one could do tochange that.  At Cambridge
Coho we have an "expectation" that everyone will contribute time to the
community but no enforcement mechanism.  Which can create hard feelings - but
most people really hate the idea of having "labor police" judging the value of
others' contributions.  In reality, of course, we all know who they are :-(

RowenaC at Cambridge Coho