Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Committee Membership

[Casey Morrigan (cjmorr]

This is an issue we've been looking at for the better part of a year.

If committee attendence is erratic - I'd wonder - is there something about
how work is divided up that is weighing too heavy on people?  No joy in
doing the work?   Is there a personality or an approach that is putting
people off?

In our case, we figured we had work divided up in a traditional committee
structure and had low meeting attendance, and rethought that by looking at
the work that "had" to be done and the work that people wanted to do.  We
then matched it up and looked at where the gaps were.  We structured the
work teams more loosely, to sort of follow people's interest rather than the
"to do list" (they look really similar on the outside but they handle stuff
differently) and decided to hire out some of the labor that wasn't getting
done that we thought important. (which we are stuck on, see earlier post,
but anyway on with the story)

Something else that somehow helped:  we took Rob Sandelin's advice and set
aside a piece of our budget last year as a "discretionary fund" that anyone
could propose to spend a piece of.  They didn't have to go through a
committee if they didn't want.  There was something that was freeing for
some people  - to get a gadget or a process or improvement going that didn't
require (necessarily) a meeting or a committee.  We've also been slowly
decentralizing our budget as we learn to trust one another and committees
have more discretion than they ever had to spend their own budgets.  They
have less layers of bureaucracy to get stuff done.  ERgo less burnout.

My lesson learned is that it might be more important to make the work around
here easy than it is to institute tight controls on money and decisions.
Good accountability for money and work comes not from tight structure and
oversight but true desire to do the work, stamina, internal motivation.
This internal motivation is the counter to burnout.  Don't throw away
accountability, just make it common sense and facilitate the birthing of
ideas.  If you can help someone get "their heart's desire" in cohousing then
go do it!

A good example was that some people here wanted to put up a moveable
basketball hoop.  I'm home all day working and dreaded the noise.  But a
couple families REALLY wanted it SO BAD.  In a major cohousing stretch, I
figured I'd try it and if it didn't work I'd deal with it.  So now, the
noise happens, but it's rarely during work hours, and a group of people
gather around and encourage the ball players, so it's another excuse to
gather on the plaza.  It's a "net plus" (what a great pun).

Casey Morrigan
Two Acre Wood
Sebastopol California

-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Becky Schaller
Sent: Saturday, October 26, 2002 10:30 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_Committee Membership


In our community, we have been experiencing a fair amount of committee
burnout and I'd like to see us work on this.  One question I have is, How do
you determine what constitutes membership on a committee?   Do people
formally sign up to serve on a particular committeee or committees?   If
someone who is not on a particular committee wants to attend, are they
allowed to actively participate as much as any  member of the committee?  Or
are they asked to be a silent observer?  Or are they asked to observe some
in-between role?   We usually strive to have open meetings here.   But
sometimes attendance at committees gets to be so erratic that it's hard to
have continuity.  I think this is one factor that has contributed to
burnout.  I'm wondering how other communities have defined or looked at the
question of committee membership.

Becky Schaller
Sonora Cohousing
Tucson, Arizona

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