Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Visioning/Mission Statement Work at Songaia

[Martha (wordbiz]

Hello Craig:

I appreciated reading your post about visioning/mission work at your  
community and the newly forming one and hiring consultants to help  
with this work. I am curious to know more about whether visioning  
work is  central to other established communities or has become less  
important over time. If it is central to established communities, how  
do members engage the entire community in this focus over the years?  
Is the point of the work to produce well-crafted statements that  
people identify with, to have engaging conversations about values, or  
perhaps something else?

Also, Craig, I wonder if the detailed description of your vision  
statement bullets (that I found by clicking on your link) was written  
by a few and consensed upon over the course of many revisions by the  
full community. In addition, can you say more about the seven monthly  
circles you mentioned? Who attends and what is the purpose?

Martha Wagner
Daybreak Cohousing
Portland, Oregon
www.daybreakcohousing.org

On Oct 7, 2007, at 3:16 AM, cohousing-l-request [at] cohousing.org wrote:

> Send Cohousing-L mailing list submissions to
>         cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>         http://lists.cohousing.org/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>         cohousing-l-request [at] cohousing.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
>         cohousing-l-owner [at] cohousing.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Cohousing-L digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. From: "Residents are Directors" to: "Vision/Mission"
>       (Craig Ragland)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2007 08:16:02 -0700
> From: "Craig Ragland" <craigragland [at] gmail.com>
> Subject: [C-L]_ From: "Residents are Directors" to: "Vision/Mission"
> To: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> Message-ID:
>         <3d048fc40710060816ke26d464p43f5240f5137b095 [at] mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> > From: Doug Huston <ldrnmsw [at] earthlink.net>
> > Subject: Re: [C-L]_ All Residents (homeowners) are HOA Directors
>
> > This line of thinking has always intrigued me as well. <clipped> I  
> > like
> > these deeper explorations.
>
> Me too...
>
> > It seems to me that cohousing is broad and vague. That's the good  
> > news
> > and the bad news. Good because different communities create different
> > traditions and physical surroundings and ways of relating, etc. Each
> > community can have a different flavor/culture that is reflective of
> > individuals who helped create it.
>
> I strongly support lots of different flavors. It makes it exciting to
> visit most communities and to talk about what matters to the
> community. Its kind of sad, to me, when all that matters is living
> together. Such a self-serving mission is just so limited.
>
> It seems to me that a lot of this really does stem from your vision
> and mission. From talking with residents of built cohousing
> communities, it seems that many cohousing communities have a vision or
> set of values that were largely talking points during formation - but
> then essentially set aside after construction.
>
> At Songaia, we regularly revisit our values statement:
>
> http://songaia.com/why/default.htm
> (these work authored in 1991)
>
> and look at our decisions through this lens. This year, we are
> focusing 7 of our monthly circles on the 7 higher level values. The
> sustainability workshop earlier this year was really something as we
> work shopped on ideas about ways to increase our "sustainability."
> Similarly, the diversity discussion and a related workshop revealed
> some deep insights around the dynamics of power in our community.
>
> That being said, while Songaia did do an excellent job of defining our
> values and vision, we were less clear about our mission. This meant
> that our core, implicit community mission was "creating a cohousing
> community that is consistent with our values."
>
> Certainly not a bad mission, but one that is easy to assume comes to
> an end... that is, you are done onces you've finished construction and
> set up the various operational processes and structures for
> relationship.
>
> Like most built cohousing communities I've visited, there is not a
> strong sense of common mission at Songaia, other than to live together
> harmoniously - which we're doing quite well (IMHO).
>
> Songaia now hosts many different missions, but few, if any, are truly
> embraced by us as a community. Some are supported by multiple members,
> but many are one person (or one couple) endeavors.
>
> One current, related question on Songaia's table is deeply defining
> our ongoing relationship with a non-profit program that we've hosted
> for 20 years... is the work of that non-profit part of our mission?
> We've provided it with subsidized rental rates and allowed it a lot of
> freedom with how it impacts our lives for many years... yet, we've
> always held it somewhat at arms length, even though many community
> members have participated in its programs individually... its hard to
> know we have a relationship from our respective websites... even now,
> I notice I've not named it here...
>
> > Cohousing can incorporate a wider
> > breadth of people because the door through which people enter is not
> > narrow. The down side of that is that what defines one as in the
> > group, or not in the group, is somewhat unclear beyond the simple
> > fact that one lives in a home in cohousing.
>
> While I continue to live and thrive at Songaia, I'm now involved in
> the formation of New Earth Song Cohousing
>
> http://directory.ic.org/records/?action=view&page=view&record_id=21298
>
> We've done some excellent vision work. We have a strong vision
> statement (see link) and are about to come to consensus on our first
> Vision and Values Document. We got to our Vision Statement with the
> help of Raines Cohen, who consulted with us to design a day-long
> Visioning Workshop. Raines worked with another facilitation master to
> lead us through a series of carefully crafted exercises that
> culminated in our vision statement - and a wondrous sense of community
> and accomplishment.
>
> What we do not have, yet, is clear mission - beyond the same implicit
> mission of Songaia. I'm very excited about having Diana Leafe
> Christian, author of Creating a Life Together, and editor of
> Communities magazine from 1994-2007 as our consultant for this work.
> Diana is joining us this coming Thursday to help us look from vision
> to mission.
>
> In case you've noticed a trend here, re: using consultants, we've
> decided to leverage strong, existing resources, rather than do it all
> ourselves... been there, done that... and while I treasure the
> learnings and experience of Songaia's 10 year self-development path, I
> choose a more senior-friendly project timeline - I've simply got too
> much other stuff to do to spend too much time developing real estate.
>
> I believe that creating community housing is just a part of the New
> Earth Song mission. I hope we end up adopting the point of view that
> our housing and common spaces are a platform that empowers what really
> matters to us... and that this is not primarily about creating good
> housing for our friends and families... we'll see. For me, while this
> is a VERY good thing, it is just not good enough given the power of
> community to effect change and spread goodness beyond the confines of
> a healthy little virtually-gated community.
>
> > I appreciate these thoughtful discussions on the list serve.
>
> > Doug Huston (Bear Grass Village Cohousing - Ashland, Oregon)
>
> Thanks Doug, you triggered some thought I've found useful this
> morning... there really is nothing quite like writing stuff out!
>
> Craig Ragland
> Songaia Cohousing - where its time for Sat breakfast, my favorite  
> common meal
> New Earth Song Cohousing
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
>
> End of Cohousing-L Digest, Vol 45, Issue 11
> *******************************************