Cohousing-L Mailing List: Participation correlation Re: Report on Survey of Cohousing Communities 2011. Just released. A must read!

[Mariana Almeida (missmgrrl]

Thanks, that helps. This is correlation which we know is not causation. 

I would paraphrase: involved communities have frequent meals. By the fact they 
are functioning and involved with one another, they also work out the 
participation issue effectively. Working this issue out effectively frequently 
means to have a mechanism for enforcement, and an option to buy out of service. 

Why I care about this: as a community, we've been batting around volunteer 
hours and whether to formalize this. We have a successful meals program with 
three meals a week. It would be nice to have more insight at to how these 
things go together.  

Thanks again for this fine piece of work!
 
Mariana
Berkeley Cohousing, Berkeley, CA


>________________________________
>From: Diane <dianeclaire [at] gmail.com>
>To: Mariana Almeida <missmgrrl [at] yahoo.com>; Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
>cohousing.org>
>Cc: David Entin <davidentin [at] comcast.net>; Neil Planchon <neil [at] 
>cohous.org>
>Sent: Friday, September 23, 2011 7:11 AM
>Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Report on Survey of Cohousing Communities 2011. Just 
>released. A must read!
>
>
>Hi Mariana,
>
>
>Here's the quote without the question marks:
>
>
>In addition to the high positive correlations between sharing meals and 
>participating in the ongoing work of the community mentioned earlier, there 
>were high correlations with the extent to which a community enforces its work 
>requirements.
>Greater enforcement of work requirements was positively related to policies 
>that allowed residents to buy out of work and to the number of work days that 
>a community scheduled. Considering these relationships as a group, they 
>suggest that communities with a greater the number of common activities, and 
>communities with stated work requirements function more effectively.
>
>
>What it means is that the more meals, the more participation in work; and the 
>more enforcement the more participation; and the more enforcement, the more 
>more likely it was that the community would permit buy-out.  In other words, 
>meals,specified work  requirements, and buy-out provisions all vary together 
>in the same direction.
>
>
>
>
>