Cohousing-L Mailing List: Quorums

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

What are your quorums? And your rationale for them?

We have Class 1 decisions which are financial and legal issues that affect 
owners. There is one vote per household, a 51% quorum, 22 households.

Class 2 decisions include everything else and the quorum is 51% of all members 
which includes owners and residents who have chosen to be associate members. 
That number is becoming difficult because we have several owners living away 
and two people leasing their units. One unit might produce 4 members who are 
included in the quorum count, two of whom will definitely not attend meetings 
because they are in Greece or Italy, and two associate members who may not 
participate in governance at all. Leasing members often participate in 
activities and workdays but not decision-making.

The Class 2 quorum is now 33 members. We have to work to get more than 24 in a 
meeting. We can get up to 28 or 29 but 33 is a real stretch. On the one hand we 
want to encourage all residents to become associate members and to be equal 
participants but it is making quorums almost impossible. 

The question is how much should we lower it. Will lowering it create a sense 
that people don't have to attend meetings? Is that good? Or bad?

Inquiring minds want to know because they will be discussing this on Sunday.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org