Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Point Person for Maintenance

[Cheryl A. Charis-Graves (ccharis]

On 5/24/02 10:24 AM, "pattymara [at] juno.com" <pattymara [at] juno.com> wrote:

> OK, Matt, I'll bite.  Please describe your point person structure for
> community maintenance.
 
I am not Matt, but I am a resident of Harmony Village along with Matt and am
actually one of the key players in design of our new structure.

Under our team structure, it seemed that the tasks that got done were the
ones for which there was a person who "took the bull by the horns" (I am a
Taurus) and provided leadership around organizing the information, the task,
etc. Left to the team as a whole, many tasks languished for the perennial
reasons: lack of time, lack of expertise, lack of interest. Also, our first
attempt at a coordinating council seemed to also languish for lack of focus
and lack of real authority to act.

Too much lack goin' on and not enough focussed attention to those tasks
which are ongoing and necessary but not so enjoyable. And we are already
paying a fairly high rate in annual dues, so adding in the cost of a
property manager seemed problematic at present. And overall planning and
coordination was fairly loose. That works if things are still getting done,
but as things went on, our budget was rising, our level of volunteer
participation was dropping, and our sense of camaraderie was suffering.

The plan mentioned by Patty Mara to "adopt-an-appliance" is definitely in
the same vein. We created a list of tasks, split these tasks as best we
could into "critical maintenance" and "important/desirable" (the issue of
values was huge in response to the word "critical"), then clustered the
tasks into "like groups." We have a five-member Coordinating Council with
more authority than the previous Council (within defined parameters, of
course) who are responsible for "domains" -- Buildings (which includes CH
maintenance and management, along with exterior surfaces), Grounds
(landscape stuff, snow removal, hardscape, etc.), Finances (HOA, long-term
reserves, etc.), Social Capital (a term we adopted to mean "social wealth in
the form of people meeting and interacting with others to generate healthy
interdependence" -- which includes all our communication tasks as well as
the social interaction tasks, including meal team coordination), and
Hands-On Tasks (an attempt to put some zip into the concept of working
together -- which includes the hot tub, workshop, and kids' room).

Each of the point positions identifies a cluster of tasks for which the
point person is responsible. The point person doesn't have to do the work of
the tasks, but organizes the information and the materials needed to do the
task, coordinates with the CC rep to get the task on the list for work days
or work parties, and in general communicates with the CC rep about budget
needs, etc.

The Coordinating Council oversees the budget, and each CC rep keeps track of
the budgeted money within their "domain." (I am in Early Childhood and we
talk about developmental domains so the term seems natural.)

So we have 5 CC reps, each with a designated "assistant," and a matrix of 22
point positions (one which is shared between two people) falling into the
domains of responsibility for each of the CC reps. It looks fairly
hierarchical, but it's still more like a wagon wheel with a hub at the
center and spokes of responsibility radiating outward. We have a total of 39
adult residents, not including associate residents (renters). That means we
have 33 adults with "designated duties" and about 6 floaters (persons with
special circumstances) some of whom also have a single specific task they
have agreed to take on.

It took several months to discuss and design the new structure. I did a lot
of the research, and relied on input from both the coho-l archives and
persons on this list who responded to my person queries.

Also, I took back to our community the ideas originated (articilated?) by
Rob Sandelin, Tree Bressen, and others to adopt an attitude of "trying it
out" and making needed adjustments along the way. I built in a "sunset
clause" at one year out to insure that we would take a serious look at how
the new structure is working.

And so the grand experiment is underway! Long response to your request . . .

Cheryl Charis-Graves
Harmony Village, Golden CO
Where we are grieving the loss of one of our elders, a man who marched in
Selma with Martin Luther King Jr and advocated for the earth in unceasing
manner

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