Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Outside participants

[JoycePlath (JoycePlath]

Marsh Commons has five dinner participants who do not live here.  Since we 
are a small community it has been great to spread out the cooking 
responsibilities and to have more folks to chat with during dinner. They pay 
$1 more for dinners.  Because our common house is a remodeled truck shop we 
have 3500 square feet more that we need, we developed commercial space that 
is now rented to a variety of enterprises.  Some of these people pay us $25 a 
month to use the common space including kitchen, laundry, ping pong area, and 
occasionally the dining and living areas for a party or art show.  Again this 
inclusion has enriched our social environment as well as our financial 
situation.  
The final way in which we include the larger community is to rent out our 
space to various groups including the Green Party, the local environmental 
center, the folk music society, a yoga group and sometimes just people who 
want to have a big gathering (graduation and holiday parties come to 
mind).The common house use a couple of evenings a month for these purposes 
has made us into an unofficial community center that fills a need and again 
helps us meet our mortgage.
Joyce Plath