Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Associate seniority -- what's it good for?

[Eris Weaver (erisw]

Jonnie Pekelny wrote:
> So, how does associate seniority work in your community? 
> What's it used for? What are the advantages to being a more 
> senior associate, versus a more junior one?

I have actually never heard of a seniority system for associate
membership. We used seniority for unit selection by full members, based
on the date they plunked down their (sizeable) down payment. (In some
cases, this meant that people who had been founding members were lower
on the seniority list then people who joined later, because they didn't
have the ability to put their money in earlier for various reasons.)

I can't see what privileges/benefits/perks would make sense for
stratifying associate membership. Unless being a more senior associate
member gave you some priority later when becoming a senior member (like
if two associates became full members on the same day, the one who'd
become associate earlier getting earlier priority). The whole exercise
seems like unnecessary complication to me.

*******************************************
Eris Weaver, Facilitation & Group Process Consultant
and resident of FrogSong, Cotati, CA
707-338-8589
eris [at] erisweaver.info