Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Private use of Common Space

[Jeanne Goodman, JP Cohousing (goodmanj]

Thank you, Sharon. Do you have any liability or insurance and safety 
concerns that have to be addressed?
Do you ever have times when community members feel as though they don't have 
enough access to their own common house?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sharon Villines" <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
To: "Cohousing-L" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2005 9:08 AM
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Private use of Common Space


> On Sep 14, 2005, at 8:09 AM, Jeanne Goodman, JP Cohousing wrote:
>
> > Greetings. We are working on a proposal for Private Use of Common Space 
> > to address use of our Great Room, Kitchen, Children's Room, Living Room, 
> > Rumpus Room, Patio and Courtyard.\
>
> We have a calendar on which people reserve the commonhouse for private 
> events just like they reserve space  community events.
>
> The only restrictions on private use are:
>
> 1. Happens multiple times -- like every Tuesday or over more than one day.
> 2. Is publicized more widely than within a membership group.
> 3. Admission is charged.
>
> This means if people want to hold events like political rallies, 
> fundraisers, weekly book groups etc. they must post the event to the 
> membership for objections. If there are no objections, the event could be 
> held.
>
> We have hosted things like silent auctions for a private school that one 
> of our children attends, served as the admissions center for the local 
> house tour, etc. but "publicly advertised" has a limited meaning in this 
> kind of event. We  host a rather large and loud Christmas Party for a 
> group of scuba divers because one of our members supervises and we've had 
> no problems -- and the party is open to our members.
>
> Members who make the reservation are always responsible for supervising 
> both the event and cleanup.
>
> The only area that has been a problem is religious services. Because our 
> commonhouse is so open and everyone is always coming and going to use the 
> facilities, it really can't be "private" and people were uncomfortable 
> with religious services going on in the commonhouse while they were doing 
> laundry or walking through to pick up their mail. It seems disrespectful. 
> Our kids room is very actively used and it would mean not using it at 
> those times.
>
> There is debate over whether shabbos celebrations are religious services 
> or not. One was held here with a local shabbos group attending and many 
> people were uncomfortable. One sort of meditation/support group was using 
> the living room and covered the french doors with sheets whenever they 
> met. That was really strange and ended after a few meetings.
>
> Most often parties and other gatherings are also open to the community and 
> people post to let everyone know what is happening and if they are 
> welcome -- or more particularly when they are not welcome. Single Mothers 
> by Choice met here once and the host asked that we not only not join in 
> but that we not "recognize" anyone since many would be women who were 
> still making decisions about whether this was right choice for them and 
> may not want to be recognized.
>
> We had to limit guest room guests from using the kitchen unless their host 
> was present because they didn't clean up.
>
> I think what works depends very much on the layout of your commonhouse and 
> what your community was comfortable with. In the early days people just 
> held events and then thought about whether that was comfortable or not. 
> Then things become traditions -- like one member's extended family has 
> Easter Dinner here and the community is welcome to join. Some community 
> members have thus become even more extended family members!
>
> Cleaning up properly (or even better, enhancing the space) will get you 
> permission to do about anything.
>
> Sharon
> -----
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: 
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/