Cohousing-L Mailing List: When elephants dance...

[Craig Ragland (craigragland]

its really hard to be an ant.

In this particular case, the elephants are a hotel and union. Both
relatively large organizations with large budgets. The only
organization being significantly hurt is Coho/US (with its single
employee and tiny budget). I hope everybody now knows that had Coho/US
known that any of the hotels we'd considered was having labor issues,
we never would spend months negotiating a complex contract for the
2011 Natl Cohousing Conference. We decided not to attempt to break a
quite well-written, legally binding contract. We must to avoid messy
problems, not expand them.

As you might imagine, this situation has been a significant challenge
and distraction for some of the Coho/US leadership. We are trying to
maintain our focus on Cohousing and the National Cohousing Conference.
Dealing with anybody's labor issues are outside the scope of our
mission. Our mission focus lets us make more progress in helping
others understand and grow Cohousing. Given the size of our budget,
staff, and volunteer base, we achieve a lot. All three of these were
growing. Now, the association needs to adjust to a smaller 2011
budget, unless some people step up.

One result of being this ant amongst these elephants is that the
Coho/US board, staff, and volunteers MUST do more fund-raising. I hope
this will be a good thing, though it will likely annoy some who have
enjoyed the services we've been able to provide thanks to those who do
carry the load. As we actively reach out to tell our story, more will
come to understand our value. Perhaps more importantly, larger numbers
will start envisioning what would possible should we grow. As anyone
who has formed an existing community well knows, a few more people
that step up and walk their talk makes a real difference when you're
working to create something grand.

You may have seen the recent invitation to contribute to Coho/US -
donations will be matched by a generous board member. For the first
$10,000 of new contributions, the contribution (of any amount) will be
doubled. This is possible because of one (wonderful) board member -
who is choosing to remain anonymous. All of our board members
contribute a huge amount of volunteer labor. Most also support the
association financially. Our board knows just how badly we may be hurt
this year and, as this donation indicates, all are committed to seeing
us through this mess.

To join us in supporting the Cohousing Association, you can go to our
website (cohousing.org) and click on the "Support Coho/US, Donate Now"
button - it is on the upper right side of every page of the website.

You can also follow this direct link to the donation form:

http://cohousing.org/donate

In community,

Craig Ragland
Coho/US Exec Dir (Jan-08 to Jul-11)

P.S. its not too late to register for the 2011 conference:

http://conference.cohousing.org

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 9:11 AM, seaseal <seaseal [at] got.net> wrote:
>
> I don't have any easy answers --this isn't black and white, yes or no--
> just like real life.  Good luck with the decision-making. I hope some
> folks honor the picket line while supporting the National CoHo
> organization.
>
> And, I know a grand lesson has been learned here by many. The next
> time you sit back and relax on a Saturday, thank a union member for
> the weekend.
>
> Cecile