Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: What are optimal numbers for beginning group?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Aug 17, 2006, at 10:35 PM, Jenny Guy wrote:
> On the other hand, there's concern that too many people (could be as 
> many as 40 adults, since there will be 26 - 30 homes) would be too 
> many for a good design workshop.  There's also some thought that, in 
> order for the group to gel, it should grow more slowly, and not go 
> from 3 to 30 households in one month.  If we invited more people to 
> the design workshop, we would have a second group 
> formation/process/facilitation workshop first, so that everyone at the 
> design workshop would have been to one or both of those.

My hunch, not having run a design workshop, is that you should think 
first about your community. How can you be an inclusive community if 
you exclude some people from any process that is of equal importance to 
all?

Secondly, design workshops, I think, are overrated in terms of their 
influence on the project. There are only so many options you can choose 
from and still keep a project affordable. I was so shocked to walk into 
a project near ours that was a standard rental building and see almost 
identical apartments -- with no participation from residents. In fact 
their layouts were better. Why did we agonize over our decisions so 
much?

The important part is the experience of discussing this together -- to 
do that you have to be together. On the other hand, you can tell people 
what the workshop will consist of and allow them to self select. Also, 
all the decisions, if any, will not be be made in this one workshop. 
It's a long process. And you will need everyone because, as others have 
said, people will drop out.

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