Cohousing-L Mailing List: Just-A-Condo vs. Real Community :-)

[allenbutcher (allenbutcher]

Vicky of Trillium Hollow agreed to my posting of her note on the list.  I
think that it might help others to understand why a cohousing community
would adopt a labor system like Work Fairshare, by seeing how it served
to create a compromise among different values and preferences.

Besides, its a good story of classic group process toward consensus in
cohousing!
Allen

PS  In addition, Trillium Hollow's story is a good (evolving)
illustration of how time economies can build intentionality in the
cohousing community, versus the "circumstantiality" of the condominium
community.

************************

Hi Allen,

I am glad that you are delighted with our version of your ideas.  We
ditched
the term 'anti-quota', though I liked it, when it was confusing to
members
during our presentation.

How did we come to use your ideas?  Well, we did this major survey of all
the members on work and how much each person thought we should do, and
should we 'require' work etc.  Myself and another person collated the
info
and came up with a minimum number of hours required as well as a way to
'buy
out' of one's work.  I then showed the draft to another neighbor who is a
good buddy, and she HATED our work, much to my surprise.  So I put a
query
on cohousing-l asking for input.  You sent a lengthy message.  We looked
at
it and found that it addressed the concerns my neighbor had, which can be
summarized (though oversimplified) by saying that she was afraid that
allowing buy out could easily lead to us turning into just-a-condo, a
concern I hadn't seen but shared once I understood the danger.  So we
went
ahead and incorporated your ideas and that has passed muster.  

We have a community that has a very wide range of beliefs, and much work
is always
involved in getting ANY idea passed.  Some people were INSISTENT that
they
have buyout opportunities, others were equally against ANY thing that is
rule-like, and would not tolerate 'have to' work hours, despite their own
hard work.  Still others work hard and want those who don't to pay up. 
Your
suggestions helped us to come up with something that all could go along
with.  I'm skeptical frankly, that it will make any difference, but we
shall
see won't we?

Vicky