Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Mandatory meals participation

[Anne Fleck (solianna]

Jackson Place in Seattle has 4-5 meals/week and 5 of 27 units never 
participate. 2-3 participate
less than fully. We are asked to cook or clean 2-3 times every 4 weeks 
(our scheduled rotation).
We have one head cook, one assistant cook, one early cleaner/set-up, 
and one late cleaner - cleaners shifts overlap for every meal. We 
consolidate our food ordering on a weekly basis so we can buy in bulk 
and we buy mostly organic produce. We have a Kitchen Team which tracks 
everything from equipment requirements to proper hygiene. We have a 
commercial refrigerator (double wide) and a stand-up freezer. Also a 8 
burner gas stove (w/ hood) w/ one small oven and one large oven. We 
also have a chemical dish"washer" , a pot sink, a prep sink, and 2 
microwaves. We average 30-40 people/meal and seat 60 (which we had for 
Thanksgiving). There are a lot of people involved in our meals program 
but we've found it's absolutely critical to our success as a community. 
Our meals cost $3/adult but are going up to $4 soon.
Anne Fleck

On Friday, December 1, 2006, at 07:45 PM, Amy Bridge wrote:

> Ok
>
> Sent from my GoodLink synchronized handheld (www.good.com)
>
>
>  -----Original Message-----
> From:   R.P. Aditya [mailto:aditya [at] grot.org]
> Sent:   Friday, December 01, 2006 07:09 PM Pacific Standard Time
> To:     Cohousing-L
> Subject:        Re: [C-L]_ Mandatory meals participation
>
> On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 03:42:55AM +0000, R.P. Aditya wrote:
> > On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 01:24:32PM -0500, Tree Bressen wrote:
> > > I think yours might be the first cohousing community i've heard of 
> > > that has
> > > 4-5 meals per week without requiring everyone to contribute.  Can 
> > > you say
> > > more about what you think led to that success?
> ...
> > - and the longer you labor in the meal program, the better you get at 
> > it!
>
> I can confirm that it is no idle speculation in our community that 
> meal work
> has become more popular over time as we just completed our 
> thrice-yearly work
> survey (which asks members to express a preference for the various jobs
> available to do in our community) and the most desired jobs in order of
> "weighted" preference (average preference - on a scale from -2 to +2 - 
> times
> the number of people expressing a positive preference for the job) are:
>
> 42 - meal cleaner once a month
> 27 - weekday meal assistant cook
> 26 - light duty snow shoveller
> 24 - sunday meal assistant cook
> 23 - meal cleaner two times a month
> 23 - Common House sitting and guest room cleaner
> 18 - Common House laundry room cleaner
> 17 - meals billing person
> 16 - weekday meal head cook
> ...
> 11 - sunday meal head cook
> ...
>
> the only meals jobs that rank in the top twenty of least desired jobs 
> are
> weekday head cook three times a month and sunday head cook three times 
> a
> month.
>
> For this upcoming work season, which will be from January through the 
> end of
> April, 2007, there are 88 different jobs to choose from representing a 
> total
> of 468 hours per month. We have 60 adult members who participate in 
> the work.
>
> Please let me know if you want more detail...
>
> Thanks,
> Adi
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