Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Affiliate/associate members

[Odysseus Levy (olevy]

This is one case where I would advise you to not pay too much attention your
lawyer. By all means, please call them Associate members.  That is what we
have done here at Seattle cohousing.  The whole point of cohousing is to
gather people together and get them to commit to forming a community.

It is very important to allow people intermediate steps before jumping in
all the way.  And the associate members need to be given a real standing in
the community.  In our community they can participate fully, but they are
not allowed to block consensus.  And of course, it is important that the
individual rights and responsibilities of each member category should be
spelled out very plainly in an easy to understand document (not some
legalistic thing).

What you are creating is a sort of extended family, or tribe.  And in those
kinds of cases a couple of lawyer friends have told me, "If you have to go
to court, you've already lost".  In other words, if your conflict resolution
process has broken down so horribly that you have to use the court system,
then you have much more serious problems than just this particular problem.

-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l [at] freedom2.mtn.org
[mailto:cohousing-l [at] freedom2.mtn.org]On Behalf Of Catya Belfer-Shevett
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2000 5:37 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: RE: Affiliate/associate members


> BTW, our lawyer advised us not call them "members", even
> associate members,
> as that would infer some kind of legal say in Pathways business.
> Whatever.
> So, we are brainstorming for another handle to refer to them by.
> Any ideas?

"Friends of Pathways"?

I toured Pathways this weeknd - wonderful!  I so envy you!

        - catya
                              ____
Catya Belfer-Shevett      ____\  /      Interested in
catya [at] homeport.org        \  / \/      Cohousing in MA?
www.homeport.org/~catya    \/       www.mosaic-commons.org