Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Games & Outreach

[Jenny Guy (jenstermeister]

Hi Sharon, one of the nice things about having a game night for outreach is
that, if no one shows up who's interested in joining the community, we
still have a nice evening with games and food. And if potential members ask
when they can meet us, we can always say 'come to game night' and we don't
have to make special arrangements. I make sure to tell them that not
everyone at 'game' night plays games; some just like to eat and talk, so
you don't have to enjoy board and card games to fit in. It's fun if one
person comes, or if 10 come (which is good, because a lot of people RSVP
and don't show up).

Having the dual function does make it so it's not a serious game night, and
we often stick to more casual games. Last month most of the people just
talked, while 3 of us managed a game of Kill Dr. Lucky over in the corner.
But some months we get a game of Settlers of Catan or something similar
going. If people are so intent on their conversation that it seems like it
would be disruptive to try to start a game, I like to stick a not-too-hard
jigsaw puzzle on the table. That way the conversation keeps going.

The part that wasn't working as well, was that random strangers show up for
the food and games who have no interest in cohousing (almost always
pleasant people), so what was happening was that if we did want to have a
focused discussion with people who were interested in our group, it could
be awkward, the potential members got confused as to who was a member, and
the ones who just came for games got left out. I think we've solved that
with our new arrangement: we have a general meeting at 3:30, people who are
interested in the community come at 5:30, and the potluck/game night
portion of the evening starts at 6:30. That gives us an hour to talk to any
prospective members alone. Of course we can and do keep talking about our
community throughout the evening (along with other topics), but that gets
the initial intense Q&A out of the way.

So basically what game night accomplishes for outreach is,

   1. we have a regular time to meet with potential members every month,
   even though there aren't always potential members to meet with
   2. potential members can get to know us in a more social environment
   3. we get to break out the dusty board games!


I highly recommend it. Also, I understand that Pleasant Hill Cohousing,
near here, has a very successful monthly tour and waiting list.

Jenny
Kingfisher Cohousing on Brookdale, Oakland, Calif.


On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 10:59 AM, Sharon Villines <sharon [at] 
sharonvillines.com
> wrote:

>
> On Jan 26, 2013, at 6:04 PM, Jenny Guy <jenstermeister [at] gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > our monthly game night, which is not just a social event, it's also
> important for outreach.
>
> Can you say more about this?
>