Cohousing-L Mailing List: Labor systems

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

I changed the title of this thread since it seems to have changed direction
away from sweat equity, which is the use of work to pay down construction
costs.

Rowena asked about the nature of how to get people to pitch in. As a self
managed development, cohousing has some requirements for resident
participation. How much any given participant contributes will vary,
depending on the tasks and their life.

Having seen this issue in lots of different kinds of communities, my advice
is to be flexible in your requirements but pay attention, not to what any
given person does or does not do, but which tasks get accomplished and which
ones do not.

The simpliest system I have seen work in several places is some variation of
a chore board, where the tasks that are NOT getting done, get posted. If the
task does not get done anonymously before the next community meeting, that
task becomes an agenda item to discuss.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood Community
Northwest Intentional Communities Association
Planning our first inter-community kids festival this spring!