Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Interpreting Sharon's" individual vs. group" statements

[racheli (racheli]

Hi Kay,
If what you're describing is "consensus", it's  certainly a
very bad example of it.
R.


>> The objective of consensus is not compromise but resolution.
>> Sharon

>Putting it that way helps me grasp why I feel edgy about the way a
>current issue in our community looks like going.

>A couple of discussion groups using our facilities, with both resident
>and nonresident members, use incense.  I've been doing a slow burn [pun
>intended] about this for at least a year now -- incense is every bit as
>harmful as the tobacco banned by our no-smoking policy, and we have at
>least a half dozen members with respiratory problems (including me). 
>Every once in a while the back room was the only one available to hold a
>meeting in, and even after several days with the windows cracked open,
>enough VOCs lingered that I would cough for a couple of hours after the
>meeting.

>I'll speak up for other people, even if not for myself.  The flashpoint
>came the night my room-mate came bouncing home, saying there was going to
>be a belly dance in the dojo.  She pulled out pants, scarves, finger
>cymbals, and belts, and bundled me into a blanket to come watch, despite
>being sick.

>There was a stick of incense burning.  After a  minute or two in the room
>she was having trouble, and said that she wasn't going to be able to
>stay. Seeing her deflate, when she'd been so buzzing with anticipation,
>made me mad.

>The "compromise" some of the incense-users are willing to agree to is
>that (a) they won't burn it if they know someone with asthma is going to
>be present, and (b) they'll only burn it in a couple of rooms -- exactly
>what they were already doing.  This is a compromise?  I don't feel it
>offers me anything.

>An ad hoc committee of members on both sides of this issue is supposed to
>meet and draft a proposal.  If the incense-users' offer is what passes,
>I'm going to have to stand aside, because I cannot and will not agree to
>something that compromises members' safety.

>And afterwards I go back to the slow burn, now without the consolation
>that they're acting out of ignorance -- they know what they're doing, and
>they insist on doing it anyway.  Not exactly a resolution.

>Kay

>P.S.  Sharon, can I quote your statement in the chapter on consensus in
>our handbook?
>argyle @ mines.utah.edu


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racheli [at] sonoracohousing.com
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