Cohousing-L Mailing List: Common House dinners

[The CoHousing Company (coho]

Interesting to read the common dinner comments and glad to hear yet another
confirmation of the importance of the visual connection between dining and
kitchen.  Since we continue to design several new common houses every year,
we are very glad to hear any and all feedback on how common houses are
working out there.

RE: COMMON DINNERS
At Doyle Street we have been doing common dinners three times per week
religiously since we moved in almost seven years ago. They are undoubtedly
the heart and soul of our community and an overwhelming success.  Our trick
was to establish the expectation of 3x/week, early in the planning process.
We have held to a system where everybody cooks equally, we don't care how
often you eat.  Dinners are on regular days on a "Sunday-Tuesday-Thursda"y
or "Saturday-Tuesday-Friday," etc. schedule, so you can count on them.

I strongly recommend regular dinner days and a systemized cooking rotation.
All of us are very busy and if cooking was voluntary, I can only imagine
that few of us could find time to fit it in. With a system here everyone
cooks; it is just one of the things to do.  Those that don't eat very often
are convinced that keeping the equal cooking system keeps the dinners a
priority.

Kathyn McCamant

The CoHousing Company
"Architectural Design and Consulting Services towards the formation of
CoHousing Communities"
email: coho [at] cohousingco.com
web site: www.cohousingco.com
tel. 510-549-9980, fax 510-549-2140
1250 Addison St. #113
Berkeley, CA 94702