Cohousing-L Mailing List: OCC decision process [was: RE: Consider Sociocracy

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

eileen mccourt <emccourt [at] CHARTER.NET>
is the author of the message below.
It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
after removing the long document and putting it with the Cohousing-L
References web pages.  See below.  Fred

--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

Hi Ann and all (and as for how I am, I am adjusting to cohousing through
large doses of disillusion and cold hard reality that I think is emerging
into a community!)

The Oak Creek Commons (OCC) Decision Making Process can be found at:
http://l.cohousing.org/occ-dcid.htm

Sorry the doc is so long - it includes
the process, definition of terms and notes to help facilitators, all of
which were part of obtaining agreement to try this out for six months.
We have one more month to go.  This was put together in a step by step
process.  Terms and definitions were approved first, then the process
itself, and each step had thorough discussion.  We had several facilitated
Non-Violent Communication sessions with Bob Metz and a 2 day retreat with
Paul DeLapa, paid for by the community.  Putting it all together, I take
back my statement that it is not as complicated as Sociocracy!  (some of
the definitions should be footnoted; I think at least some them came from
a small book on consensus - can't remember the name and author).

Since implementing this, we have completed a perimeter fence, internal
fences, established landscape guidelines, are closing in on creating an
Architectural Review Process, are starting to talk about how to spend the
remainder of our profit share and have established a stronger board of
directors.  All of these issues were extremely thorny and at an impasse
before the process was adopted.  As you can see, how to vote is left
vague.  This was somewhat deliberate, since we could not really envision
voting, and decided it would be easier to decide exactly what to do (how
long for notices, proxies, etc.) in the event that a vote is needed.

We have had a couple of situations since this agreement where a person was
blocking, and the people at the business meeting agreed unanimously to go
ahead in the face of the objection.  The objector accepted this as a valid
process.  Both of these situations related to who could best serve the
community on a committee requiring certain specific skills.  This was
discussed openly at the meetings.

The Oak Creek Commons (OCC) Decision Making Process can be found at:
http://l.cohousing.org/occ-dcid.htm