Cohousing-L Mailing List: openings

[Catya Belfer-Shevett (catya]

Since no one else from my group has chimed in (come on, I know there are a
bunch of you on here)..  (We're Mosaic Commons, in MA, and we seem to be
back in land search mode, though it's not entirely clear.)

We have a candle that sits next to (formerly on top of) printouts of all of
our minutes, decisions, financial records, signed membership agreements,
etc - all of our documents.  We light it at the beginning of the meeting, as
a symbol of all of the work we've done so far, and a something of a presence
for the folks in the community who haven't joined yet, and for the folks who
have left.  It also symbolizes the need to remember that we're making
decisions for the good of the community, not for the individuals in the
room.  (Oh, and it has candle holder that is a glass mosaic, to go with the
group name.)

We've also evolved something of a game of putting someone on the spot to
describe what it is the candle symbolizes, which is sometimes amusing and
sometimes we get some interesting insights on what parts of it are important
to which people, etc.

We also do a go around opener that often includes introductions when we have
new folks (which is almost always, i think!) and answering some silly
question, or sometimes something more serious.  (What's your favorite winter
sport, or food, or whatever.)

After the break in the middle of our meetings we do a "and now for something
completely different" - some icebreaker kinda game that gets us on our feet,
etc.

Last but not least, at the end of the meeting we do a checkin with our
process observer, which often moves into appreciations of various people for
various things - it's nice.

        - catya, with renewed appreciation for our facilitation team.
                              ____
Catya Belfer-Shevett      ____\  /      Interested in
catya [at] pobox.com           \  / \/      Cohousing in MA?
www.catya.org              \/       www.mosaic-commons.org

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