Cohousing-L Mailing List: Looking for advice about enhancing our Friends policy

[Jonnie Pekelny (jonniep]

Hello, everyone. I am a member of North Oakland Cohousing, in Oakland, 
California, a community that is in site-search mode. We currently have a 
category called Friends of North Oakland Cohousing, which consists of people 
who are interested in our community and who want to be affiliated with us in 
some way, but who aren't currently on track to move in with us, when we find 
and build our site.

Right now the structures supporting that piece of the community are pretty 
slim, and so there isn't much involvement from Friends. Recently, there has 
been interest in a more robust Friends structure, partly because some of our 
Members and Associates needed to withdraw. They may or may not rejoin later, 
but, in the meantime, they love us, want to be affiliated with us, and want to 
come to social events, be involved with the community, etc. So, we are looking 
for a way to keep them in the loop.

I'd love to hear stories of Friends networks that work. How do you get Friends 
involved in your community? How much access to community forums/mailing lists, 
whatever, do you give them, and how do you keep those lists active? This and/or 
whatever other insights you can give us would be great.

Thanks in advance for the information.

Jonnie