Cohousing-L Mailing List: Cohousing Tours

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

Raines asked last week about cohousing tours since Coho-US wants to perfect
their tours so....

I took the Mid-Atlantic Cohousing tour a couple of months ago and can't
recommend it highly enough to both cohousing residents and those interested
in cohousing. It was an excellent way to see a large number of communities
in one day and get a lot of information that you wouldn't get if you showed
up alone. We had a full busload of people and saw 6 communities, from vacant
land to completed and lived in, and heard several presentations while
on-board the bus about the communities we were going to see.

It was very efficient, very informative, and very enlightening. It also made
me feel that I'm part of a network of communities since I need to see things
to believe them. I don¹t care how many people I know who live in Liberty
Village, for example, it wasn't real until I saw it and felt the sun, the
wind, and buildings there.

Important to consider:

Informative presentations on the bus so the travel time is well used.

Introductions of tour takers by the leader (since only the leader has a
microphone) so everyone knows why other people are on the tour. I found out
too late, for example, that three people on my tour were city council people
who were refusing a zoning variance to a new community. After the tour
(without my help) they were enthusiastic and all in favor. It's nice to know
who is looking and where they are from. Some were from Pennsylvania and
planning to build there.

Organized lunch and snacks at stops. This both allowed more socializing and
was necessary since we were all famished and thirsty.

Organized tour guides at the stops. It takes a determined person with strong
vocal cords to get group of people in and out of houses on a time schedule.
A couple of our guides were solicited on an emergency basis and spent more
time talking to a few people in whispers than guiding the group so we both
missed houses and slowed down other groups who probably missed houses as
well.

People in their homes as we went through so they could answer questions like
where did you get ....? Do you really like....? Do you wish...? Some homes
were empty and others had people who couldn't answer any questions.

Written materials and fancy packets were not as important unless the
community had homes to sell and you were planning to buy homes in those
communities - which at least half the people on my tour were not. A map of
all the communities with a brief description and contact info would have
been fine. The more expensive and labor intensive materials could have been
available on request.

Before the tour, prepare a list of the attendees with information on how to
contact them and distribute this with the map. It would be incomplete but
the list we all tried to do on the bus understandably never got distributed
-- it was mostly illegible. Try writing an email address riding on the
bus!!!!!

Get a good bus with a nice driver -- we had a lovely one and it was
important because it was a long day and we were on and off a lot.

IDEA: Plan a tour with even larger dimensions -- a tour of four states with
sight seeing in between. Two buses of people! Three! Add mountain climbing
in Colorado! A tour of the California coast! Scoping sites in upper New York
State!

The sky is the limit!

Sorry this is so long. I got carried away,

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



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