Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Request for meals info offline

[Larry Miller (larry.miller]

Hi Jennifer,

Demographics can enter into this, so our experience may not be applicable to 
you. Oak Creek
Commons is 36 households. We currently have about 53 adults and 15 children. 
There are a large
proportion of retired folks and those working out of their homes. 5 of the 36 
households are
renters. And account for 6 of the children.

We have 2 meals a week, Thursdays and Sundays at 6:00. We have no signups for 
meals but
typically get about 30 adults and a few children. Individual meals can 
occasionally have as few
as 18 or 20 and as many as 35 - 37 (adults). As children are free, we don't 
track how many come,
but it's relatively small as many of the parents are among those who don't come 
that often.

We have teams of 3 cooks and 3 cleaners. Each month the Kitchen Committee puts 
up a signup list
for the next month. Near the end of the month, a couple of us take the list and 
assign people to
the vacant slots. We have a list of volunteers who are willing to be assigned 
and under what
conditions (only Thursdays, cooking only, etc.) We plan on one potluck each 
month and if we run
out of volunteers, we add potlucks. If we can't get cleaners for the meal, we 
cancel it,
although that's rare.

Budgets for the meals are set by the Kitchen Team based on average attendance 
and the desire to
bring in about $10 per meal for pantry supplies. Currently its $130 and we say 
to cook for
around 30. We charge $4.50 for adults and $2.00 for teens. Some meals lose 
money, others show a
profit. Our goal is just to make it work. When we have good attendance for a 
while, we generate
enough excess cash to have a free special meal, like 4th of July.

Some specific responses:
1) Most adults work FT and aren't available to cook in the daytime to have a
large meal ready by 6:30 or so.

Thursday meals tend to be lighter and easier to prepare, but we do have a 
number of people who
are home all day who like to cook.

2) Several attempts to integrate meals into our work system have been
unsuccessful. 

We give work hour credit for cooking and cleaning. It makes a difference to a 
few people, but
many of the volunteers already get their hours in without it. One non-work hour 
alternative that
was discussed but never implemented was to charge people who didn't cook or 
clean more than
those who did. We actually worked out a simple system for that.

3) Some people are intimidated by some of the large meals that have been
produced by people who are talented cooks.

Yes. I don't know if they are intimidated by talented cooks or just by the size 
of the meal. We
found that teams of 3 ease the burden and there is always someone experienced 
on a team. People
can sign up to be either lead or assistant cook. Once they've done it, it tends 
to not be a
problem.

4) Even when people do take initiative to prep a meal, often people don't
want to sign up till the last minute because they don't know what their
schedules will be like.

Signups just never worked for us for the reason you mentioned. We gave up on 
them. We rarely get
too many. When attendance is low, we have a stock of take out containers and we 
sell off the
leftovers. Cooks get any unpurchased leftovers for free.
 
Larry Miller
Oak Creek Commons