Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: how many people for common meal...just starting

[Eris Weaver (erisw]

> 1.  How many people are committed to either cooking and/or 
> cleaning on any given meal night?  The head of our committee 
> wants to schedule SIX people for each meal.  

At FrogSong, our cook/cleanup teams are just THREE people. One is
self-designated lead. The 3-person team does all meal planning,
shopping, cooking, and cleaning up...and is usually DONE for the night
by 8 or 8:30.

We have meals 4 times a week, three on fixed weeknights and a floating
weekend meal. We have 30 households.

We have extremely high meal participation, with 35-50 people at any
given meal.

> 2.  We are about to "sell" the concept of everybody is 
> expected to cook/clean.  

The key to our high participation was the clearly stated expectation
that EVERYONE takes a monthly turn in the kitchen. We set this up WAAAAY
before move-in, so it was very clear to new members that this is part of
what they're signing up  for. Participation in meals is much higher than
in any other community work, I think because we set the expectation SO
early.

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Eris Weaver
FrogSong
Cohousing in Cotati, CA