Cohousing-L Mailing List: Flawed membership process

[Fred H. Olson (fholson]

JIM POWELL  powell [at] chorus.net   Fair Oaks Cohousing   Madison, WI
is the author of the message below but due to a problem it was posted
by the Fred the list manager: owner-cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

We've just gone through a very difficult membership process where we found
ourselves in the ridiculous position of asking two households to join us
when we only had one unit available (and no other units/property on the
horizon; we're  retrofit). Our policy is to accept people on a first come
basis, but the two households arrived at the same meeting! 

The end result was that after accepting both households, all of us (new
members included) met to decide who would get the available unit. We called
in an outside facilitator. Though committed to consensus, our group debated
a coin toss vs. each household's needs to settle the matter. In the end one
new household deferred and allowed the other to take the available unit.

I feel we handled this all badly. We asked new people to join and then made
them fight it out to see who got to move in. We touched on differing views
of power, diversity, community, consensus and didn't resolve any of them. I
feel we exacerbated these problems. We all may learn valuable lessons from
this, but right now some of us are avoiding talking about it, one person is
talking about leaving and my wife and I feel as if the new household will
be welcomed with less than opens arms.

Does anyone have experiences to draw upon that might enlighten me about how
to proceed? Thanks.

JIM POWELL
Fair Oaks Cohousing
Madison, WI 
17 members, 6 units & wonderful garden being worked right now!