Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Question: How Things Get Done

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

Sharon Asked, How our teams are established and how old is our community.

The first question is the easier of the two. Teams are created by ongoing
tasks. There are tasks involving children, parties, the commonhouse, the
gardens, fixing things, the greenbelt, running meetings and process, buying
bulk food, keeping the library. Thus each of those sets of tasks has a team.
Many teams have budgets to accomplish their work, each team requesting money
annually. Each team has a scope which is self defined by the team, sometimes
annually. Each year there is a new sign up process for all the team. Some
teams have the same members for years, others start entirely new each year.
All community members are expected in at least one team. Some tasks are
temporary and so we form task forces to organize proposals for the group to
adopt or not. For example, this week the new greenhouse task force was
organized and held its first meeting. Its mission is to propose a design and
funding plan for a greenhouse.

How old our community is always a hard question to answer since we are a lot
development model, where one house at a time is built. The first home built
here was in 1987. We still have 4 undeveloped lots, and the next home built
here will start in a couple of months. So when  did we become a community?
One house does not make a community, but there were numerous people meeting
and working on things. Does five? 10? Not sure how to say how old we are. I
moved here in 1990 and we were the fifth family to live here, the 12-16th
people on site. There are now 86 living here.  Community dinner started in
1992. We built our commonhouse in, uh....I forget 1996? Each new family is
added to the existing relationships, one at time. So my relationships go
back some 14+ years with some of these people. So for me, Sharingwood is 14
years old. For the oldest members here, its 17 years old. If you counted
when the land was purchased and the site plan approved then we would be 20
years old this year.

Rob Sandelin
South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
Sky Valley Environments  <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous [at] msn.com

http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L

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