Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing Axioms - from Power Struggles After Move-In

[Alicia George (ajgeorge]

Two clarifications to Sharon's comments:

> Because of the pressures of deadlines and the added complexities of working 
> with
> the developer and the contractor and all the consultants, there was no time 
> for
> the Design Team to take every decision through the group as well. They met 
> weekly,
> were very active on email in between, published good notes of their meetings, 
> and
> held open team meetings. Mostly they just forged ahead, checking in 
> frequently.

This way of working (forging ahead while checking in frequently) was explicitly
authorized by the membership, or it probably wouldn't have been accepted. And we
(the Design Team) were very concientious about posting our agendas in advance 
and
posting our minutes promptly, so members could stay informed and get more 
involved
if an issue dear to their hearts was coming up for action.

> The Design Team also stayed"formed" a bit longer than some people thought
> appropriate -- some believing we had to pry them apart so the Facilities Team
> could function -- but I think it was a natural result of having so much 
> invested
> in the process and being too burned out to communicate fully with the group, 
> not a
> power struggle in the sense that they thought it should be that way and no one
> else had a right to the control.

I would say that we (the Design Team) stayed formed because our responsibility 
for
construction oversight was still underway. Construction on half of the units was
completed in mid-November, but the other half of the units weren't finished 
until
December-January and the common house wasn't completed until spring. So we were 
in
the awkward position of having to begin to manage parts of the facility while 
other
parts were still being constructed. And there weren't enough interested members 
who
were comfortable with the technical issues to staff both a Design Team and a
Facilities Team.

Alicia George
Takoma Village Cohousing
ajgeorge [at] earthlink.net
http://www.takomavillage.org

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