Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Re: Hiring labor

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

We are a large community and we don't have enough volunteers to get all the
work done either. We just don't do it at all, and so it goes undone. Even
somewhat important safety type things don't get done right away either.
Sometimes things might take several months or years to get done. People
complain sometimes, but there is a high correlation between those that
complain, and those who don't do the work. I would say 90% of the physical
work here is done by 20% of the membership, and perhaps we do maybe half of
all the tasks on the imaginary task list. There is no one here currently to
drive any changes to that system, and so that is how it works. People who do
manual labor around here do so of their own free will, and if they complain,
they are encouraged to stop doing more than they are comfortable doing.

We funded a patio in the front of the commonhouse for three years in a row.
This year, somebody actually took on the project and got it going and we got
about 80% of it done. The remaining 20% might take another 3 years to
finish. Or it could get done next weekend.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood

-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Marty Roberts
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 10:19 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_Re: Hiring labor



On Tuesday, October 29, 2002, at 10:01 AM, Rob wrote:

> There are community members who are hired regularly for individual
> work done
> for other members, for example house painting, landscaping, house
> cleaning,
> massage, carpentry work. These are private transactions between
> members -
> sometimes money changes hands, sometimes its a trade.
>
> We tried out a community barter system but it never worked out, so
> people
> just negotiate among themselves for what they provide or need. Seems
> to work
> out just fine, with no community overhead needed.
>

That sounds like a good system in a larger community like Sharingwood,
but here at TAW we currently have 13 households (our 14th is traveling
for a year).  some are single parents, some are getting arthritic,
seveal have bad backs, all are very busy.  since we don't have enough
people to get all the work done, we also don't have enough people to
hire or help each other either (all the time, that is - we certainly do
help each other often).  We really need some outside help now and then
or else the smallish percentage that does most of the work will go
cuckoo!


Marty Roberts Productions
Video and Web Site Production
http://www.martyrobertsproductions.com
(707) 829-9191

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