Cohousing-L Mailing List: childcare funding

If your group funds childcare for meetings or other community events, for 

members' children, how do you do this? Is it a line item in your annual 

budget? Is it a donation collected at the time, or for a kitty, in advance? 

Do people have any concerns about group liability? Common sense says a 

babysitter is not likely to be a licensed, bonded etc contractor, and that 

legal issues should not run the show. We've been funding ours by a donation 

kitty, periodically restocked, to keep it legally more separate, and maybe 

for some people to make it more a matter of choice. 

Of course, there are other childcare issues. Even with funds ready, locating 

a caregiver who is competent, affordable, and available (especially for a 

Saturday morning business meeting, or weekend retreat) has been a serious 

challenge. 

What are your experiences? 

Lynn at RoseWind Cohousing, Port Townsend WA

up and running for years now, about 8 little kids, probably a few less in 

care for an event

www.rosewind.org

Today's Topics: 

   1. Revisiting Consensus (Fred H Olson)
   2. Re: Revisiting Consensus (Sharon Villines)
   3. Developing Participation Policy (full-version,    not

      guidelines) Timing? (Scott Bentley) 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 04:35:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: Fred H Olson <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
Subject: [C-L]_ Revisiting Consensus
To: -cohousing-L mailing list <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Message-ID:
        <Pine.LNX.4.62.0709100431290.12409 [at] farnsworth.tigertech.net>

Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII 

Joel Plotkin <joel.plotkin [at] sunyit.edu>
is the author of the message below.
It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
since it was sent in html only which the list does not handle. We are
working on finding a way for Joel to send plain text.  Fred

--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS -------------------- 

COHOrts: 

A question regarding consensus--Our community uses consensus as our
decision-making process, with CT Butler's essay as a guideline. A
question arose yesterday about revisiting an issue on which consensus
had been reached several years ago. The more procedurally-oriented of us
(still hearing crackles, perhaps, from remaining synapses of Roberts'
Rules of Order) wanted first to reach consensus on a proposal to revisit
the earlier consensus. Others said that simply reopening discussion was
an implicit agreement to revisit the earlier consensus, but that without
a new consensus, the old decision stands. This last is what Butler

writes in his essay. 

It seems to me, in the light of the morning, that trying to arrive at a
consensus to revisit an earlier consensus is inherently virtually
impossible, given that some members have already expressed some
disaffection with the earlier decision; that not agreeing to revisit the

issue undemocratically silences those who wish to reopen the discussion. 

Our group has decided to continue work on the issue in a smaller group
(a traditional consensus next-step), implicitly acknowledging that the
earlier consensus IS being revisited, without a formal proposal to

revisit. 

So here's where I'd like input: Do any of the consensus-based or
sociocracy groups have language about revisiting earlier consensi
(consensuses? consensim?) or experience that may help a group with very

varied backgrounds in consensus better understand this issue. 

A further question: the issue at question is that our current Rules and
Regulations require members of the Community Owners Association to be
partners in our tree farm business venture, a separately-incorporated
LLC. Those Coho groups with attached or covalent businesses--how do you
handle the issue of a COA member not wishing to be joined legally to

that business? 

Joel Plotkin
Hundredfold Farm

Orrtanna, PA 

------------------------------ 

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 08:14:14 -0400
From: Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Revisiting Consensus
To: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Message-ID: <555B4A2D-5F6B-49EA-AEDF-725B298C1AC5 [at] sharonvillines.com>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed 

On Sep 10, 2007, at 7:35 AM, Fred H Olson wrote: 

So here's where I'd like input: Do any of the consensus-based or
sociocracy groups have language about revisiting earlier consensi

(consensuses? consensim?) or experience that may help a group with  

very

varied backgrounds in consensus better understand this issue.

In sociocracy, a decision is revisited whenever there is new  

information or when goals change. The basic decision, to use consent  

as a decision making method, is the only decision that is not  

revisited. BUT in sociocracy, consent is used to make policy  

decisions, not all decisions. 

A group can decide by consent to allow the leader to make decisions  

autocratically on a day to day basis, use majority vote to determine  

the date of a bike race, or use a theocratic belief system to  

determine the decorations on a religious holidays. 

What most groups using consensus decision making lack is a structure  

in which to make those decisions. In a sociocratic structure, it  

would be clear where and how a decision would be reopened. 

The purpose of consensus decision making is harmony and commitment.  

Within the limits of the goals of the group, consensus should address  

the needs of all members of the group. It sounds like your group is  

no longer doing that so to use consensus as an excuse for not  

addressing those needs is a blatantly contradictory. 

On the other hand, the goals of the group do place some limits on  

what needs the group is pledged to address. 

A further question: the issue at question is that our current Rules  

and

Regulations require members of the Community Owners Association to be
partners in our tree farm business venture, a separately-incorporated

LLC. Those Coho groups with attached or covalent businesses--how do  

you

handle the issue of a COA member not wishing to be joined legally to
that business?

This sounds like a legal question. If people joined the group knowing  

that this was true, they may have little legal recourse to change the  

situation. 

Under sociocracy, this decision would not be changed until there was  

consensus to do so. The old decision would stand until a new one is  

made. 

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Coauthor with John Buck of We the People
Consenting to a Deeper Democracy
A Guide to Sociocratic Principles and Methods
ISBN: 9780979282706

http://www.sociocracy.info 

------------------------------ 

Message: 3
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 23:27:01 -0700 (PDT)
From: Scott Bentley <sleeper40 [at] sbcglobal.net>
Subject: [C-L]_ Developing Participation Policy (full-version,  not
        guidelines) Timing?
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Message-ID: <78725.27017.qm [at] web81209.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii 

Hello,

Our facilitation committee at La Querencia, in Fresno, Ca., decided that at out upcoming meeting Thursday we would find out what members would like to be on an ad hoc committee to develop the participation policy for our community.  As I'm putting the agenda together for the meeting, the question came up--is it too soon to work on the participation policy, as construction has not quite begun, so we're a year or so away from move in.  Any light shed on this topic would be appreciated. 

Thanks, Scott Bentley 

------------------------------ 

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End of Cohousing-L Digest, Vol 44, Issue 8

****************************************** 

childcare funding	<– Date –> <– Thread –>
From: Lynn Nadeau (welcomeolympus.net)
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 13:07:07 -0700 (PDT)