Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Consensus process - decisions/changes

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Mar 11, 2006, at 8:32 PM, Barbara Lynch wrote:

> At Pleasant Hill Cohousing where we have 45 adults and have lived here 
> 4 and
> a half years, one of the tools we use to move toward consensus is a
> "distillery".  A committee (perhaps an individual) might schedule a 
> meeting
> on a topic (distillery), encouraging those especially interested to 
> attend.
> Lots of brainstorming takes place.  The committee then writes a 
> proposal,

I like the idea of a distillery and would like to suggest another small 
group called "wordsmithing." We find that when a proposal has been 
modified and amended and cut and pasted 8 times before it reaches 
consensus we find ourselves with agreement on concepts but with a 
document that is a mess -- inconsistent language, unnecessary 
duplication of words and phrases, convoluted structure, etc. Before the 
final sign off, it helps a lot for the document to be rewritten by 
people who care about words and think they mean something.

Part of the process of working through a difficult issue is 
understanding both the issue and how everyone sees the issue. This all 
comes out when people see the first draft so writing a good draft is 
hard until you have almost reached agreement.

Sharon
-----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org