Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: guidlines on consensus acceptance - communities movement

[Tree Bressen (tree]

Hi Sharon & folks,

> I have long wanted to participate in a list for intentional communities
> that would reflect the breadth of community, rather than a narrow list
> like Cohousing-L. Cohousing-L is such a wonderful resource with open
> sharing people, wouldn't it be great to have an email list open to all
> intentional communities so they could share. So when a list was
> announced in the last Fellowship for Intentional Communities
> newsletter, I immediately joined.
>
> The rules for participation on the list tell the story about why there
> are so few intentional communities and no list on which they share
> information. The rules grew and grew over the first month so that I
> finally sent a message that I knew would get me evicted. The list of
> rules:

[snip]

> After cohousing, it was a very strange set of rules. And, of course, I
> said so, and am no more on the list. But I thought this might present a
> good comparison of the different mind-set of cohousers compared to
> other intentional communities.

Hey now!  The rules and administration of that particular list (for new 
communities starting up) that you cite seem rather peculiar to me too, and 
i doubt the list will have a long life.  But please don't take that list 
vs. Coho-L as a valid comparison of cohousing vs. the broader intentional 
communities movement--it's not fair to pick out one offputting example to 
discredit a vast set of communities.  I could just as well find some 
offputting cohousing start-up group and compare it to one or more 
well-established non-cohousing communities and say that cohousing is worse 
than other communities, but why would i do that?

Cheers,

--Tree



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