Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Common spaces and decision making

[Katie Henry (katie-henry]

On 6 Jul 2012, at 2:22 PM, oz wrote:  > I'm pretty clear that our current 
process discriminates against people who > are less willing/able to write out 
their ideas and make requests. Its easy > to sit in judgment about these 
non-proposers, saying things like "they are > just not willing to do the work." 
Its much harder to help them meet their > needs if that support is needed and 
welcome.

A different perspective -- In my former community, I implemented a capital 
improvement project that required a lot of work making sure the project 
met the needs of the community, identifying contractors and products, and 
coordinating and supervising the work. There was no question that the project 
would get approved -- everybody wanted it, and the money was already 
allocated -- but I deeply resented that, in addition to doing weeks of 
legwork on the project, I also had to jump through the proposal hoops -- 
paperwork, three presentations at membership meetings, etc. It seemed 
(and still seems) to me that communities should have a person or team 
specifically to assist with the proposal process. There were other 
projects that I wanted to undertake but decided not to specifically 
because I felt it was unfair that I should have to do everything all by 
myself.

Katie Henry