Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Communication when times are stressful

[Berrins (Berrins]

Just a thought-
    How much of your work is being done by committees?  Maybe 6 months ago we 
began shifting a large amount of work to the committees, who work out most of 
the details in much smaller groups.  (We've got 24 households and have all 
been in since July, pretty darn close to you folks, although we're still 
waiting on our common house, which should be done in a couple of weeks)
    For years the committees worked mostly on research and development of 
proposals, which would then be discussed at general meetings, then sent back 
to the committee if necessary (for large topics, this could happen several 
times).  In general meetings we regularly got bogged down explaining things 
until everyone got all the details, in long discussions about alternatives 
and deviations into tangental issues and ultra-fine tuning the proposals.  
For big issues, this was worthwhile, especially in the early phases with all 
the design issues and community rules and regs.  Now that we're done with 
most of the really big stuff, it's inefficient and mostly unnecessary.
    These days committees do the research and consense on a proposal, post it 
by email and on a bulletin board with the time and place of their next 
meeting.  Anyone with a concern or an idea can answer back and/or come to the 
next committee meeting.  The proposal is redone if necessary and a deadline 
given for final remarks and concerns.  If no one says anything by the 
deadline, the proposal passes.  Anyone at anytime (before the deadline) can 
ask that a proposal be brought to a general meeting and the committees can 
bring things to the general meeting at their own discretion.  Some proposals 
are run by the board (which is made up of reps from all the committees) for 
input, especially those issues that involve more than one committee.  It 
seems to be working so far, but it requires everyone stay up to date by 
reading the committee reports (which also need to get out in a timely manner).
    Before we started this process we needed 3 to 4 meetings a month, 3 hours 
each meeting, to get the work done.  Now we are down to 2 meetings, with an 
optional third if we have a lot of business.  We sometimes use a meeting for 
a community building presentation or workshop.  We hope, after the Common 
House is finished and the rest of the development issues are settled, to get 
down to one general business meeting a month.

    Another thought- have you done any retreats?  No business, just get to 
know each other.  

    Hope this helps...

    Roger Berman
    Pathways
    Northampton, MA