Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: Refining concerns / needs

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On 7/20/03 2:44 PM, "Becky Schaller" <bschaller [at] theriver.com> wrote:

> During the general meeting, as a large group, we name the needs/concerns the
> best we can and we list them. Kind of a first draft. Then we ask people to
> get into groups of 3-5 people.   We do this in such a way that we encourage
> people to meet with people who's stated needs/concerns are different from
> their own.  We ask people to first listen to each other and respond with
> either reflective or active listening.  Then we ask people in these small
> groups to see if they can refine these needs and concerns to ones they can
> either all agree with or agree to .

I think it is important to have a method of figuring out how this happens.
I'm not a fan of small groups, but one of the most irritating is how much
time it takes to get into  the groups. Joining a group with which you agree
is not much of a reason for joining a group.

What you might do is make your list before the meeting -- perhaps as the
result of small group discussions or individual discussions so you can
decide how to do this before the meeting -- so you understand how many
groups you have or need, for example. Then in the meeting ask if anything is
missing from your list.

You can then figure out where to direct people to discuss the issues.

> "We don't want to put a greater value on some work than other work.  For
> example, we don't want to say that pouring cement somewhere counts as work
> hours but bringing dinner to a sick neighbor doesn't count."

This is a hard opposition because it is so extreme and undefined. What
constitutes "sick" and what constitutes "dinner"? What work would you do if
you didn't live in cohousing and what would you only do because you live in
cohousing. I would suggest that only those things that can be quantified and
constitute work to actually support the community can be counted.

Everyone takes meals to their neighbors whether they live in cohousing or
not. Cohouselings may do it more but our larger neighborhood is very
organized about this. They have even supported one woman who was burned out
of her home for several months offering lodging, food, clothing, gift
certificates, money orders, etc.

Usually the issue is do commonhouse meals count as total workload?

You need good examples of jobs can be defined. What is the job? Who defines
it? Thinking of this in economic terms might be easier -- what jobs support
us economically? Commonhouse meals are economic supports.

The "nice" things, we just do for each other and do not have to agree on
what they are or what they are worth.

Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org

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