Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Guest Room Usage and Policies in Cohousing

[Berrins (Berrins]

In a message dated 3/27/01 4:49:38 AM, coho [at] world.std.com writes:

<< I would like to know how many communities on this list have guest rooms and
if they are used often.  I would also like to know:

1) Are they overbooked on major holidays?
2) How do you decide who gets to use the guest rooms?
3) How are they cleaned/maintained?
4) What are your guest policies?
5) Would you have built more/fewer guest rooms if you had it to do over?
6) Has having guests had a positive or a negative impact on your community?
Why? >>


Here are the present Pathways's official rules- these should answer #'s 3 and 
4.

     Use of Guest Rooms
Members provide the sheets and towels for their guests and leave the room 
clean as per posted checklist.  Guest rooms are available for incoming guests 
after 12:00 noon and should be vacated by outgoing guests before 12:00 noon, 
but this is flexible depending on whether there are other guests coming or 
going.  The large guest room may be reserved for small meetings.

Fees for private events hosted by Members
    Guest Rooms
Members will have 5 free nights of one guest room per year and after that 
will be charged $10 per night for Friday and Saturday and $5 per night Sunday 
through Thursday.  There is no fee for meetings in the large guest room.  
Requests for exceptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Those above are  official written rules I could find.  Below are others I can 
recall...

At present, its first come, first serve for the rooms.  If you reserve the 
room and don't use use it, you still have to pay for it.  If you cancel it in 
time, you don't have to pay, but I forget how much advance warning is needed- 
maybe a couple of weeks?  There was a move afoot to allow folks to only 
reserve one, to keep the other open in case someone else needs it (up to two 
weeks beforehand, then one member can get both rooms), but that rule is still 
under discussion.

We've only the had the rooms open for a few months, so we can't gauge how 
much holiday use they'll get.  This year was minimal, I guess, but who knows 
about next year?  The few folks that have stayed have liked the rooms, and 
the impact on the community is mild (from what I've seen) but definitely but 
positive.  

We have two rooms- a good amount.  They don't get used a lot (maybe once or 
twice a month?) so more would have been a waste of space.  But both have been 
used on occasion, so having at least two has been good.

Another thing- they don't have to be very big, just comfortable.   If space 
is at a premium, you could program in another use for each room.  For 
example, one room could be used to practice music, as a first aid room or to 
house a lockable desk/mini office with a fax and/or copier.

Good luck!

Roger Berman
Pathways
Northampton, MA
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