Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Telling the communities history

[Robin Allison (ecohousing]

We did this a couple of years ago, a few months after we moved in to our
completed first stage of construction. I mapped out the major events and
processes of our 10 year history as a timeline on large pieces of paper that
stretched around the walls of our meeting room. Other people brought photos
and significant documents and pinned them to the appropriate place on the
timeline, or wrote their names on pieces of paper and added them to the wall
at the time that they joined the group.

We spent a whole day and another evening telling each other the story of our
project, using the timeline as a memory jog - and it was awesome, a
wonderful walk together along our journey, with lots of laughter, deep
sharings, questions answered, and some healing of the harder bits. The whole
storytelling was both video and audio taped by members. One of our members
is transcribing the audio tape as a written history, and I'm sure we'll have
some great video-watching events in 10 years time!

All the best with your storytelling.

Robin Allison

Earthsong Eco-Neighbourhood
P.O. Box 70001, Ranui,
Auckland, New Zealand
www.ecohousing.pl.net