Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: consensus process - decisions/changes

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

I rarely ever disagree with Tree but I have a different perspective. She
mentioned that she does not support sending proposals out in advance. I
think this is crucial in large communities such as cohousing. I think you
want people to clearly have advance opportunity to see the details of the
proposal, think about nuances or things that might have been missed, so when
they come to the meeting, people are prepared and ready to modify and change
the proposal to meet the groups needs. Since cohousing groups tend to be
40-100 people in size you need to transmit information out of the meeting
time, unless you expect to have all day long meetings. Some people require
advance time to chew over stuff.   I do agree whole heartedly that the
proposal is just the beginning place, and it is the task of the meeting to
shape it into an agreement, which sometimes can mean substantial changes. I
would also add that sometimes this process might require multiple meetings
to get the groups best thinking. As a faciltator couch one of the cautions I
often give cohousing groups is that for many they have committees craft
proposals for the large group and this can lead to frustration because the
committee thinks once the proposal is ready their work is done. This
sometimes is the case, but it can also be the case that the large group has
other ideas, input or just plain disagrees about aspects of the proposal. A
proposal should always be considered to be a temporary holding place for
some ideas, and not considered the best ideas or the draft solution. Expect
ALL proposals to be modified, and then you will be pleasantly surprised on
those occaisions when the committees thinking and ideas meshes with the rest
of the groups. 


Rob Sandelin
Naturalist, Writer
The Environmental Science School
http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm
><((((º>`·..·`·..·`·...><((((º>...·`·..·`·...><((((º>.·`·..·`·...><((((º>.·`
·..·`·...><((((º>·.. ><((((º>
·`·..·`·...·..·`><((((º>.·`·..·`·...><((((º>.·`·..·`·...><((((º>..·`·..·`·..
.><((((º>·.. ·`·..·`·....·`·..·`·...><((((º>


-----Original Message-----
From: Tree Bressen [mailto:tree [at] ic.org] 
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 5:51 PM
To: Cohousing-L
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ consensus process - decisions/changes

Dear Jane & folks,

>In our January meeting, a decision was reached and written on paper in 
>front of the room.  The minutes were distributed with the decision as 
>made in the meeting however the relevant proposal had different wording 
>(the decision said, "adult" and the proposal said, "12yo and older").
>
>That discrepancy was brought to the attention of the minute taker and 
>he changed the decision to reflect the proposal's language.
>
>At the February meeting, the Jan. minutes were approved with the change 
>to the decision.  (Only 2 of the 8 people at the January meeting were 
>among the 8 people at the February meeting - one was the facilitator 
>and the other took notes)
>
>Now we are coming up to our March meeting and there is disagreement 
>over whether this is a 'procedural issue' with a proposal to return to 
>the original January decision OR a time to re-visit the topic of the 
>original proposal and re-hash it since there is dissatisfaction with it 
>OR a 'too bad' the Feb. crew approved the Jan. minutes, period. OR......???
>
>Experiences?  Thoughts?


I agree with the two other people who have written in so far that if people
are not happy with the outcome then it's worth revisiting in this case.  One
of the main reasons to use consensus is to create high enrollment in the
decision; if you don't have that, it's worth looking at why not and how to
get it.

Having low carryover of attendance from one meeting to the next also invites
problems.  Hopefully it just happened that way this time and is not a
regular occurrence for your group.

OK, my main impetus to write is to say that a main feature of consensus
process is working out solutions in the group, and that means it is normal
and expected to alter proposals at a meeting.  I don't expect a substantive
proposal to pass without modification, unless it's already been discussed a
bunch at previous meetings.  It's not clear from this description whether
that's what happened (that is, did the proposal say "12 & older" and then
get purposely changed by the group to read "all adults"), it sounds like the
situation was confusing with some people thinking they were agreeing to one
thing and some to another.  But the group needs to have the power to develop
or alter proposals on the floor, and i advocate against having any
requirements regarding notice of specific proposals.  That is, i think it is
obstructive to have a policy that in order for a proposal to be officially
adopted at a meeting, it must have been sent out ahead of time.  It puts the
power in the wrong place, giving it to those who aren't at the meeting
instead of those who are.

Of course it is also incumbent upon groups to make every effort to be
inclusive--in my community we would not schedule a topic that Fulano is
really concerned about when Fulano is out of town and can't make it to the
meeting, at least not without talking with Fulano first.  And i do think
it's helpful to have agenda topics known ahead of time (although i probably
wouldn't write it into policy, i would support it as a norm), which is
different than giving notice on exact wording of proposals.

I don't know how relevant these comments from me are to your specific
situation.  I got on my tangential soapbox about this topic because i've
seen in my travels that some groups do have such expectations, which
concerns me.

Best of luck in sorting it all out at your March meeting.

Cheers,

--Tree Bressen
(facilitator/teacher for a bunch of cohousing groups)



-----------------------------------------------

Tree Bressen
1680 Walnut St.
Eugene, OR 97403
(541) 484-1156
tree [at] ic.org
http://www.treegroup.info

_________________________________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: 
http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/


--
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.2.1/279 - Release Date: 3/10/2006
 

-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.2.1/279 - Release Date: 3/10/2006