Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Secrecy in Cohousing Records

[Kay Argyle (kay.argyle]

> But whichever thing is happening and no matter how biased Norm's
> account may be, the methods of dealing with the situation won't solve
> anything. Closing meetings and refusing to share legal documents with
> members is not a workable solution in any kind of community seeking
> to be cooperative.

Well said Sharon!

Power games, such as restricting access to information or meeting
attendance, etc., tend to contaminate group dynamics far beyond the people
immediately involved.

The fact that our community worry-wart (you know who you are) is
occasionally spot-on makes the Don't Worry Be Happy folks, if anything, less
tolerant of their what-if scenarios.  However, when someone has attempted to
silence or circumvent the worrier, the repercussions to community
relationships have caused more trouble than the amount of work involved in
treating the concerns with respect.

When it comes to achieving goals and following the agenda, the line
shouldn't be drawn between "committee member" and "visitor." I've been on
committees where the facilitator was the worst obstructionist there.  If
someone is keeping the committee from meeting a goal, refer them back to the
community - presumably the committee takes its goals from the community?  If
someone is hijacking an agenda, ask them to respect other people's time -
but be certain that the problem is not actually that the committee is trying
to avoid discussing unresolved concerns by not having room on the agenda.
That comes back to bite the community.

I've also been in the position of being criticized by people who weren't
willing to do the work themselves, wanted me to do more work than I judged
reasonable, or plain didn't know what they were talking about (or - what's
really unforgivable - were quite right).  However aggravating that is,
telling them to buzz off doesn't improve matters.

That said, the pool/spa sounds like far too much trouble.  Difficult enough
with volunteer labor to get consistent daily testing, but several times a
day?  Yikes.  (If the hot-tub boosters ever get ours built - when pigs fly?
getting my own test strips sounds like an excellent idea.)  Is automatic
testing feasible?

Someone absconding with the test results sounds as unrealistic a concern as
the operator no doubt thinks yours are. There are other solutions than
locking them up.   Enter them into a computer, or into a bound notebook
that's chained to the wall.  

Is the rotation daily, that is, each team member does testing once a week?
I wonder if a less-frequent rotation would work better.  Our common house
lockup is rotated monthly. I know for myself it quickly becomes part of my
routine, and gets almost automatic as the month goes on.  I suspect I would
forget half the time if my rotation was, say, every Tuesday.

Kay
Wasatch Commons