Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Should cohousers rebuild (or redesign) the wheel

[Ann Zabaldo (zabaldo]

Hello all -- this reinventing the wheel  is something I find quite
perplexing.  Maybe this is because my personal style is that anytime I have
a task I try to find out who has done work in the area, how much has been
done and how can I get the info before I put a whole lot of time and effort
into retracing already trod ground.

That doesn't seem to be the case for cohousing communities.

Here in the DC area we have seven communities w/in 1 hour of each other.
Most communities are not even a long distance call away.  Yet...rarely do
the communities or rather individuals in the communities interact w/ each
other.  This is the chief reason we started Mid Atlantic Cohousing -- to
provide a forum for folks to get together and share what is working well in
their communities and to ask for help in the areas that are not working so
well.  MAC also provides training opportunities in facilitation, decision
making, etc.  MAC is composed of the seven communities nearby along w/ one
in SW Virginia and one in NC.  (Geography notwithstanding, we welcome any
community to join!)

MAC is launching a series of workshops that deal w/ the nitty gritty of
living in cohousing.  The first of these on facilities maintenance,
workshare and architectural review I announced here earlier this week.  As
Jan noted in her email:  there is an abundance of wisdom in cohousing
communities.  MAC's goal is to tap that wisdom and distribute it to other
cohousers.

So rather than try to solve the riddle of why cohousers reinvent the wheel
we're just going to be in action about capturing the knowledge and
experience of those who have already cleared a path.

One way is to write up and post effective practices. Annie Russell from
Wonderland Hill has developed a form for this.  I modified the form --- you
can download it and a sample completed form from the MAC website:
www.cohomac.org -- follow the links from the home page about the Nov. 6th
workshop.  I believe CohoUS is considering gathering these practices and
putting them up on the national website.  (Raines, if you're reading this
perhaps you would comment?)

I encourage anyone living in an area w/ multiple cohousing communities to
organize a get together.  Doesn't have to be  complicated.  You might be
very pleasantly surprised.  You may already have all the wheels you need to
build and live in cohousing.

Ann Zabaldo
Takoma Village
Washington, DC



On 10/22/04 1:54 PM, "Jan" <jan [at] sunward.org> wrote:

> Chris writes:
> 
> "the desire to start from scratch, do everything yourself, to not depend on
> other people for anything."
>
> ------------
> Anyway, it is expensive doing everything from scatch, ignoring the wisdom
> (yes, there is some!) of those who have gone before.  Affordability is a
> concern.  Rebuilding (or redesigning) the wheel is expensive.  The same
> community which motivates me to become an activist requires a financial
> commitment that keeps me tied to a job.  The time and energy commitment for
> the job prevents me from becoming much of an activist.
>
> 
> Jan
> Sunward
> Ann Arbor, MI
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
> 
>