Re: Following agreements | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: pattymara (pattymara![]() |
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Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 09:56:01 -0600 (MDT) |
With all respect, Eileen, I think that regular attendance at meetings is more important when you are developing, marketing and building your cohousing community, which is exactly where you (and Oak Creek Commons) are now. This is the time when the really important, risky, community- forging work takes place. The issues are often make-it-or-break-it, the stakes are high and the personal interactions are critical for creating your group's vision and heart. After move-in the issues morph into a whole different animal, becoming more everyday, bread and butter ordinary. The high adrenalin, high risk decisions simmer down. For example, we had our business meeting last night and the agenda items ranged from limiting signs on the common house doors to notices for events occuring less then 48 hours from the time of posting, to buying a chipper to chew up landscape and orchard waste into mulch, to buying new letterhead stationary, to discussing common house room use. Not your high stakes issues. Sometimes the issues become more heated, but the business meetings are just one of the venues where conversations and compromises can occur. When you cross paths with your neighbors at meals, in the laundry room or at the chicken coops on an everyday basis, these are opportunities for connection, much more interesting to me than at a business meeting. Business meetings at Tierra Nueva seems to ebb and flow in attendance. Last night we had 18 households represented out of 27, for a relatively lacklustre agenda. About 70%, right? And when hot issues surface we get more, and during summer vacation we get less. It's all good. coheartedly, Patty Mara Gourley Tierra Nueva, central CA coast On Thu, 7 Jun 2001 10:55:35 -0700 "Eileen McCourt" <emccourt [at] mindspring.com> writes: > I think regular attendance at meetings is definitely a requirement of > living > in cohousing. Not everyone agrees, although I would say we get > about 70% of > households at our meetings. We are just about to start > construction, and > lots of money is involved. Our meetings require most people to > travel 3-4 > hours at least once a month, but we still get good attendance. > > --eileen > > Eileen McCourt > Oak Creek Commons > Cohousing in Paso Robles, CA > emccourt [at] mindspring.com > http://oakcreekcommons.org > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org > [mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Robert P. Arjet > Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 8:40 AM > To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org > Subject: Re: [C-L]_Following agreements > > cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org writes: > >This particular cohousing group regularly only gets > >30-40% of its members to attend meetings, which meets the quorum > >requirements but apparently isn't enough to make some decisions > actually > >work. (it was instructive to hear WHY people did not attend > meetings) > > I'd be interested in hearing more about these reasons. We're still > in > the "forming" stage, so I'm not surprised that are a lot of people > who > attend 50% of the meetings or less. I've assumed, however, that > once we > are a "real" group, with "real" members and money involved, that > regular > attendance will simply be one of the duties of membership. However, > it > looks like in a lot of communities attendance is just not a > requirement or > a social norm. > > Maybe I spent too many years on football teams in Texas, but it > seems to > me that if you don't show up for practice, you really can't expect > to > play. Am I right in assuming that any consensus-based group with a > 40% > attendance rate has much bigger problems than who cleans up messes? > I > can't imagine trying to get compliance on a decision when 60% of the > affected parties weren't there. To stretch my metaphor dreadfully, > that's > like trying to run a brand-new play when only the quarterback, the > wide > receiver, and a couple of the linemen were at practice. 60% of the > players aren't going to know what to do, it's going to fail > miserably, and > all the people who weren't at practice will agree that the play was > a bad > idea. The worst part is that in cohousing, there's not even a coach > to > blame. > > I guess what's at the bottom of my curiosity is this: do other > people > consider meeting attendance a central requirement of living in a > consensus-based community? If so, then why is there so much trouble > in > getting people to show up? What are those instructive reasons for > people > not showing up, and do they generally hold water? > > Thanks, > > Robert Arjet > Central Austin Cohousing > www.austincohousing.org > where we have agreed to accept membership money, but until we have a > budget, we're not allowed to spend any... > > > _______________________________________________ > Cohousing-L mailing list > Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org Unsubscribe and other info: > http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l > > _______________________________________________ > Cohousing-L mailing list > Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org Unsubscribe and other info: > http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! 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Re: Following agreements pattymara, June 8 2001
- RE: Following agreements Eileen McCourt, June 8 2001
- Re: Following agreements pattymara, June 10 2001
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