Cohousing-L Mailing List: re: removing members

[Stephanie Fassnacht (fassnach]

Wow, not much response on this issue.  I am assuming that it is
because this subject is as unpleasant to everyone else as it
has been for us.  The only reason this subject came up at all is
that several years ago, while I was still a member of Porchlight
Cohousing, a Quaker by the name of John Gastell, who wrote a book
called "Democracy in Small Groups," came to talk to us on the subject
of consensus.  John gave some pretty convincing examples of why it was
necessary to consider ahead of time what a group would do in case a
member was so dysfunctional as to disrupt the functioning or health of
the rest of the group.  Of course, I've now forgotten what those
examples were; I only remember that at the time I was pretty
convinced.
  From the responses I did get, it seems that we would be better
served in putting our efforts into improving group cohesion and
robustness, and depend on mediation and/or by-laws to deal with a
worst case scenario in the unlikely event it should arise.

Stephanie Fassnacht
Village Cohousing
Madison, Wisconsin