Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Revisiting Decisions

[Jeanne Goodman (goodmanj]

A clarification point here. All members go through a clearness process where
they get an opportunity to express concerns about previous decisions. We try
to make it clear that we don't want to steamroll the consensus process, but
we do want to keep putting the ice pick in a little higher as we climb that
mountain of building our community.

So instead we try to let people use our decision log as a guide for whether
the prospective member feels as though our community is the right community
to join. So, for example, let's say Mary is considering becoming a member
but absolutely doesn't like our pet policy one bit. The intention isn't to
try to get her to try to get up enough support to change the policy, the
objective is to be clear and up front with her from the beginning so that if
her lifestyle is in conflict with our decisions she'll realize that our
community isn't right for her. From the other side of the coin, when Frank
joined he also noted our pet policy. He agrees with it and feels really
strongly about it. When he became a member, he has the comfort of knowing
what the pet policy is and that it is not likely to change. He knows exactly
what he's investing in and that becomes a source of comfort.

Hope that answers your concern.

Jeanne Goodman
Jamaica Plain Cohousing
Boston, MA
http://www.jpcohousing.org


-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Sharon Villines
Sent: Friday, December 07, 2001 1:59 PM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: Re: [C-L]_Revisiting Decisions


> Our group made the following decison about changing decisions:
>
> 11/19/2000      Changing Decisions      75% of the equity membership would
> need to agree before re-visiting a consensed decision.

Interesting question -- where does consensus begin and end.

If a test of how well your consensus process if working is that decisions
stay made until there is new information or changed circumstances, was the
decision ever made by consensus if 25% of the group can be ignored if they
request to revisit the decision.

That sounds like 75% is good enough, leaving 25% unheaded.

I realize this is a serious issue. I'm not finding fault with the difficulty
of never moving forward, and needed a fall back position if a large majority
of the group is in agreement, but should this fall back position also be
called "consensus" or referred to in the same terms.

Defining 75% is vote counting with majority rule.

Sharon
--
In Washington DC where all roads lead to Casablanca






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