Cohousing-L Mailing List: Calling All Seattle Area Cohousers

[Joani Blank (joani]

Friends,

The Cohousing Association of the US would very much like to sponsor tours 
of cohousing communities in the Seattle area in the new year.  We are 
looking for a couple of folks to do the on-the-ground coordination for 1-3 
tours during the year. The local "work" consists of arranging for the tour 
bus and lunches, making visit arrangements with community hosts in each 
community to be visited, and some local promotion.

On the day of the first tour,  if you wish, I will come to Seattle to lead 
the tour (at the expense of the Association), and two or three local folks 
(not necessarily those who coordinated the tour) can come along for 
"training" so that the tours can be operated locally thereafter.  The 
Association will promote the tours on their website, and will handle the 
registration, money, etc.

Cohousing tours have been taking place in the S.F. Bay Area for about 8 
years now (they were done independently by Ken Norwood before he passed 
them over to the Association). Also there was a large one (55 people) just 
ahead of the Berkeley conference in '91, and two in Colorado just before 
the Boulder conference. Tours are also being conducted regularly now in the 
Washington DC area.  These tours have all been very successful, with 
virtually every seat (usually 30-35) filled on every tour. Participants 
uniformly report that they learn a tremendous amount about cohousing by 
visiting 4 or 5 communities in one day. This way they are readily able to 
experience both the differences and commonalities among communities. I urge 
you to check out www.cohousing.org/news/tours.html for more on the tours.

Two documents, Guidelines for Cohousing Tours and Guidelines for Community 
Hosts, plus a template for the community fact sheets that we use, are 
available. If you'd like to take a look at them before you consider 
volunteering to work on the tours,  please request that I send them to you 
electronically, at tours [at] cohousing.org pr direct email to 
joani [at] swansway.com. You can call to chat about any aspect of the tours if 
you prefer. My phone numbers are below.  Please do not reply to the list; 
however, we'd be pleased if you'd pass this email on to anyone you think 
might be interested who does not currently participate in this listserve.

I will be out of the country from the 8-26 of January, and it'd be great to 
hear from a few of you before I leave.

Joani Blank
2004 Tours Coordinator
Cohousing Association of the U.S.

510-834-7399
Cell: 510-387-1315
joani [at] swansway.com
www.joaniblank.com 

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