Cohousing-L Mailing List: Getting Buy-In on Decisions

[OCC611ng (normangauss]

As time goes on, we are experiencing less and less interest in Membership
meetings.  To practice the community consensus way of making decisions and
have the decisions be representative of the wishes of the community, it is
best to have a quorum.

Our bylaws specify a quorum of 75% of households.  We are lucky to get 51%
at our membership meetings.  Sometimes, when less than 51% are present, any
decisions we make are not really representative of the wishes of the
community.  Some have said that any decisions made at such meetings are not
valid.

We are technically a condominium, a Non-Profit Mutual Benefit Corporation.
Under the laws of these corporations, the Board of Directors makes most of
the decisions, not the Membership.  However, even if the Membership were the
major decision making body, the fact that we often do not have a majority of
households represented at meetings makes such decision-making potentially
invalid.  Corporation law recognizes the Board of Directors as the
responsible party whenever decisions are officially logged or when
challenged in court.

To solve this problem, we have adopted a procedure whereby all decisions
made in our Membership meetings, whether or not a quorum is present, are
sent to the Board of Directors for ratification.  Does anybody see any
reason why this is bad thing to do?

Norm Gauss