Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Quorum at meetings

[Charlene McNamara (char]

Sarito said:
> > The quorum issue is the one issue where we almost invoked our backup
> > vote process.  (So far we never have).

Brian's response:
> What's the difference between someone in a meeting saying 'if you do
> X, I will call for a vote, and you know you'll lose' vs. actually
> going through the paperwork of the vote?
>
> What's the difference between meeting participants doing this math
> silently in their heads and then 'giving consent' vs. actually going
> through the paperwork of the vote?

The difference is the community and individual support you will
receive after the fact for the decision that was made.

The former option, threatening to call a vote, is going to alienate
those who disagree with you.

As Sarito shared, the only time our community almost invoked the back
up vote process is regarding a quorum issue, meaning that there have
been a couple of times when time sensitive issues arose that needed to
be decided and we didn't have a quorum in attendance. Fortunately, we
were either able to postpone those items through lots of effort on the
part of individuals or we reached quorum at the last minute by people
showing up in time for that particular discussion.

It seems our community works pretty hard at realizing that if we have
people "silently doing the math in their heads and then giving
consent" we're not doing the community a service. Our facilitators and
community members in general are pretty good at calling out when they
feel someone's concerns have really not been heard and truly trying
make everyone's concerns heard and hopefully dealt with. People have
also been pretty good at stating, they will offer their consensus, but
still have concerns and are willing to "give it a try" if others feel
good about proceeding.

I think the concern is really about the underlying sentiment in a
community. If people really don't care about others concerns, it
doesn't really matter what policies are in place. If people really do
care, it does matter that there are underlying policies in place, but
they can take many forms and varieties.

charlene


Charlene McNamara
char [at] lene.com