Cohousing-L Mailing List: Getting work done

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

Ac couple of  the things which probably makes our system work so well is
that we have a dedicated facilities team who tracks what needs to be done,
keeps lists of regular ongoing and recurring maintenance things and notices
stuff. When other people notice things that need fixing they let the
maintenance team know.  This team does NOT do all the work, they do some,
and then they organize work parties or are in charge of hiring it out.  They
have a substantial team budget, some of which is earmarked for specific
things, some of which can be used to pay for outside labor.  They Always
budget food for work parties, usually a breakfast. We also do an annual full
day work party called Take care of Sharingwood day which includes a tee
shirt, breakfast, lunch, a slide show and dessert potluck. It is hugely fun
and a lot of projects get saved up for this day. There is something kind of
cool about all of us wearing the same shirt while working on the community
chores, it makes you really feel like you belong to something and the
designs are made by community artists and actually some of my favorite
t-shirts. 

Our teams are well funded and pretty autonomous, the teams decide what to do
with their budgets and what the priorities are, of course, getting direction
from time to time from the membership as needed.  

So as an example the commonhouse got painted, the team held a meeting to
decide what colors and what kind of paint. People input to the TEAM meeting,
and then it gets done. It is SOOOOO much easier to work out practical
details in the smaller functioning group who actually does the work.
Personally I think funded, self directed teams are a fabulous organizational
tool for larger communities. 1/3 of our annual budget goes to teams. Money
that is not spent by teams rolls over into next years project fund which can
be spend on anything people want. 

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood