Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: General Meetings and visitors

[Elizabeth Magill (pastorlizm]

We have varied on this. I will say that when we have had open meetings and the 
meeting has dealt with a tough issue, we have had folk join right after that. 

There is nothing like confidence that a group can handle what needs to be 
handled as a sales tool.

And we have had phases that we had tough stuff at the first half of the meeting 
and prospectives were welcome to join us from the break on. 

Pre-building we had "intro" meetings once a month just prior to our general 
meeting, and our general meeting twice a month. Attendance at an "intro" was 
required so that naturally pushed all the first-timers to one of the two 
meetings and we scheduled content accordingly.

And since move-in we've moved LLC meetings (the gatherings of the original 
founders discussing what to do to get the remaining homes to be sold, etc.) to 
once a month, on a different date than the General Meetings where we discuss 
and make decisions about life here.



-Liz
Elizabeth Magill
www.worcesterfellowship.org




On Jan 15, 2012, at 9:31 AM, Greg Nelson wrote:

> 
> A while back, Sharon Villines wrote:
> 
>> I'm always surprised to find that members of the community consider
>> Membership Meetings and the Members Only email list to be "public"
>> forums. I consider them to be private, between-us forums in which one
>> can talk openly and ask questions.
> 
> I'm interested in hearing more on this topic especially regarding
> meetings.  Since we are still growing (5/30 households built so far
> with another 3-4 families hoping to build this year), our community is
> currently using General Meetings as a forum for new prospective
> members to come and meet the membership and learn more about us.  I'll
> summarize some of our experiences with this below.  But I'm wondering
> what others do (or did) during this phase of bringing new people on
> board while also conducting ongoing business?
> 
> + Visitors get a better sense of what community process is like.
> + We get great input from our visitors.
> + Visitors feel empowered because their input is heard by the
>  commuity.
> + People who aren't scared away by the meeting process seem to make
>  good members in the long run.
> 
> - Current members sometimes feel "embarrassed" by airing our "dirty
>  laundry" in front of people we barely know.
> - Visitors are often exposed to more of what is challenging (and thus
>  requires meeting time) than what is working well (and thus happening
>  outside of meetings).
> 
> Thanks for your thoughts,
> Greg Nelson                   email:  terramantra [at] gmail.com
> White Hawk Ecovillage         phone:  607-273-2576
> Ithaca, NY 14850              web:    www.whitehawk.org
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