Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Quorum

[R Philip Dowds (rpdowds]

Interesting.  By coincidence, we are trying to revise our Bylaws, and quorum is 
a hot topic.

Our current system, stipulated in our Bylaws, is this:  Almost all decisions of 
any magnitude must be made by the entire community in a "General Meeting" (GM). 
 Two-thirds of 32 households = 22 households must unanimously consent to the 
proposal.  But since it's very hard to ensure 22 of 32 actually appear on a 
Sunday afternoon, we allow proxies, whereby an absent household authorizes an 
attending household to vote in its behalf.  This authorization is substantiated 
by oral report.

The new system we're trying to get to is this:  Minimum attendance for a valid 
GM meeting is 14 households, a little less than half.  No proxies or mail-in 
votes — in part, because we're hoping to benefit from more creative, 
in-the-moment amendments.  Instead, we've added more process requirements, more 
prep meetings and run-up meetings, more reconciliation meetings if needed, to 
help ensure everyone knows what's going on and has a chance to participate.  We 
are trying to swing back to classical Butler consensus, where creative 
resolution of objections brings us to better, more thoroughly accepted 
solutions and decisions.  Not everyone is totally comfortable with this change, 
or with letting go of unanimity as the goal.  (We are looking at an 80% 
super-majority vote for situations where one or two objectors simply cannot be 
satisfied.)

The other part of our experiment with reform involves more trust in our 
volunteers, and more delegation of power and resources to our volunteer groups. 
 Such that lesser business can be done outside of the GM process.  But we've 
not successfully figured out, yet, how to tell the difference between a "minor" 
and "major" GM issue.  For instance, a proposal to make all community meals 
strictly vegan doesn't cost money, and is readily reversible — and yet, would 
probably be seen by at least a few households as a Big Deal.

At any point in time, we seem to have two or three units occupied by tenants, 
with the true owners absentee and non-participating.  I remain baffled why our 
tenants are not members in good standing, with participation rights.  I mean, 
like, people have fought and died to establish that citizenship and voting 
rights are totally unrelated to whose name is on the property ownership deed.  
I cannot understand why so much cohousing is retrograde in this regard.

R Philip Dowds
Cornerstone Cohousing
Cambridge, MA

On May 11, 2013, at 6:32 PM, Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah <welcome [at] olympus.net> 
wrote:

> 
> Looking for info on how other groups handle quorum. 
> 
> At RoseWind Cohousing in Port Townsend WA, we designate significant 
> categories of decision as Class One. Examples are passing the annual budget, 
> selecting Steering and officers, decisions to sell commonly-held real estate, 
> financial items over $1000. For such decisions, we require 10-day advance 
> notice, and the presence of someone from each of at least 10 households. 
> 
> We have 24 households total, but now, for example, there are 4 units which 
> are not occupied by owners, two households that don't choose to participate, 
> several more that rarely do, an elderly member, an ill member, and several 
> households that are away out of state on trips. Our monthly meetings usually 
> have 10-11 households (many with two members present). These are regular 
> participants and well-informed and thoughtful. Our decisions have seemed 
> successful. 
> 
> We still have a requirement for a higher quorum (13 households) for "amending 
> the documents". The problem is that some changes to our Bylaws or CC&Rs are 
> minor (like removing obsolete references), and most are no more momentous 
> than stuff we do as regular Class One, with its quorum of 10 households. If 
> we require 13 even for minor amendments, we might never get it. A few people 
> are concerned that if we make amending the documents simply Class One, we 
> might approve something drastic (majority rule??) without adequate support. 
> 
> Do you have special requirements for making certain types of decisions? 
> 
> Maraiah Lynn Nadeau
> www.rosewind.org
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> 

R Philip Dowds
Cornerstone Cohousing
Cambridge, MA