Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: delegating decisions/ committees

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

Delegating decisions:
It helps once you get committees set up, and have some mandate spelled 
out for each committee. Some things a committee will always handle, like 
the Kidstuff team will always handle arranging sitters and getting 
payment and reimbursements, as any committee deals with administering 
their committee's annual budget, once the whole budget is set. A 
committee MAY decide it doesn't want to do something without the consent 
of the whole group, or may wish to have a discussion circle to get input 
from a larger group.

Other things get handled by the group consenting to delegate a matter to 
some individual, committee, task force, or such. In one case, the whole 
group said "If you A and you B can agree (as they were at opposite ends 
of a spectrum) the rest of us can live with whatever satisfies both of 
you!" Or a task force may be delegated to do something with some 
constraints: "you can spend up to $400 for legal help", or "get the best 
deal you can". 

Back when there were only 6 of us, we just decided on the spot who would 
handle what, and if they had to check back with the rest of us. 

Our standing committees (now that we are 24 households) are Steering, 
Grounds, Common House, Architectural Review (only now and then when 
needed), Finance, Facilitation, Development (only some leftover odds and 
ends on their agenda still), Outreach (marketing and assisting new 
members), and Kidstuff. At the moment we have task forces working on 
Document Revisions, common house patio development, and Goals document.

We elect our 5-member Steering Committee, and our Treasurer, Secretary, 
and legal-fiction President and VP. All other commmittees and task forces 
are volunteers. Each committee has a descriptive document of a page or 
two, which needs to be updated at least every two years, which tells what 
they do.  

We also spell out certain categories of decisions which we call "Class 
One", like money matters (not already budgeted) over $1000, decisions to 
buy or sell real estate, changing our governing documents, etc. Those 
decisions must involve ten days' notice, and at least 51% of our 
households represented (quorum) at the meeting, to approve such items or 
to approve delegating such items. 


Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing
Port Townsend Washington (Victorian seaport, music, art, nature)
http://www.rosewind.org
http://www.ptguide.com
http://www.ptforpeace.info (very active peace movement here- see our 
photo)

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