Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Committees and General Meetings

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Eileen McCourt <emccourt [at] mindspring.com>
is the author of the message below. 
It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org> 
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We have had a number of situations like the one Becky describes, and
finally learned to delegate to a sub-group, which does not need to be
the regular "playground" committee, but includes all interested parties,
especially the person/people who are not in sync with the original
proposal.  The conflict gets worked out in the smaller committee, and
they bring a proposal back to the entire group, if necessary.  In our
case, we would probably give the smaller sub- group authority to make
the final decision, with a report back to the general meeting.  

We are in development, and do a lot of delegating, thankfully.
Personally, I hope this does not change significantly when we move in.
We do, however, expect regular reports from all committees; formation of
committees and special subject ad hoc committees or groups is approved
by consensus at a general meeting; and, we have already approved a
"roadmap" for decision making and delegation based on the model in the
book Democracy in Small Groups, which I purchased at the Consensus
Workshop offered by Laird Schaub at the last Cohousing Conference.  We
also are in the process of clearly defining the roles and
responsibilities of the committees in one document, which will be
approved by consensus.

If we have difficulty in a committee, we try to have the conflict
resolved in the committee, possibly with facilitation.  But if there is
a conflict that cannot be resolved in this manner, I think the conflict
should be brought back to the group, initially, though we have people
who would do almost anything to resolve the conflict without full group
support.  From my point of view, when two people are at loggerheads,
each one is usually representing a point of view that is broader than
their own.  And if in fact a position is not broader than a personal
agenda, this should become clear when it comes back to the group.  But
then it should go back to the newly formed interest group to finally
resolve.  Spending 3 meetings on the same conflict is exhausting - we
have been there.  (I may write the worst one up for Joani for The
Cohousing Journal, but it takes a lot of work to revisit difficult and
very complex conflicts.)

--eileen

Eileen McCourt
Oak Creek Commons Cohousing
Paso Robles, CA
www.oakcreekcommons.org
 
-----Original Message-----

From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org] On Behalf Of Becky Schaller

Sent: Monday, July 15, 2002 6:15 AM

To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org

Subject: [C-L]_Committees and General Meetings

I have a question about general meetings and how to support committees in
trouble.  One of the committees we have has been focused on a design for
the perimeter of the play structure.  To make a very long and agonizing
story short, they couldn't come to agreement on a particular wall.  They
asked someone who is not on the committee to facilitate their meetings.

They talked about how they felt and tried to deal with process
difficulties.

That didn't seem to help.  They discussed the perimeter some more.  They
didn't make progress.  So they decided to bring the issue to the general
meeting.  Before doing so, they planned on agreeing to a roadmap that they
would propose that the community would follow in coming to a decision. 
 
The committee did come to an agreement to the roadmap at a particular
committee meeting.  However, one person wasn't at that particular
committee meeting, and did not agree with the roadmap.  Not knowing what
else to do, the proposal came to the general meeting anyways, and we
started discussing the roadmap.  What did people like and what did people
not like?  How would they like to see it changed?  We have now had three
general meetings where we have discussed the road map.  I don't think we
made any noticeable progress in either of the first two meetings.  I think
we spent 50 minutes on the subject in each of those meetings.  This last
meeting, we did make a little progress in terms of coming to agreement on
the roadmap.  We spent 1 1/2 hours on the subject. 
 
At the last Facilitation Team Meeting, we began to look at Tree Bresson's
website.  Particularly, we looked at the page on setting agenda items.  We
noted that Tree had written that if an item is proposed for the agenda
which is the result of an unresolved conflict between two people, then
those people need to work on the conflict and the general meeting is
probably not a good place for this issue to be resolved.  Even though this
is a conflict within a committee, I have suggested this to a few people. 
Some people seem to be open to the idea.  Others react as if this is a
cruel suggestion.  I can understand this since this committee has
certainly gone through more than enough already.  And certainly, a
conflict within a committee is different than a conflict between two
people. 

However, spending over three hours on the process of making a decision in
a general meeting about how to go about making a decision is enough to
make me not want to come to general meetings. 

So my question is, How does a community best help or support a committee
which is stuck?  

Becky Schaller
Sonora Cohousing 

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