Cohousing-L Mailing List: Lovely UK Cohousing Network conference at Threshold Centre Cohousing, Dorset

[Diana Leafe Christian (diana]

Hello,

Here's a quick report for coho-L folks on this list. The UK Cohousing
Network conference was lovely, and seemingly quite successful. About 45
cohousers from all over England and Wales gathered at a beautiful small
cohousing community, Threshold Centre, in a rural area of Dorset in
southern England.

Various board members, including Mark Westcombe, whom many North American
cohousers met at past Coho/US conferences, gave introductory
presentations. I did a keynote talk on governance & decision-making on
Friday afternoon, and a workshop on Saturday. In the various breakout
workshops on Sunday morning a UK Sociocracy Network trainer, James Priest,
and I gave an introduction to Sociocracy. After lunch James and I did an
informal consultation with a forming community, Bridport Cohousing, also in
southern England, who are using most parts of Sociocracy now. As far as I
know, Bridport is the only cohousing community using Sociocracy.

I met Maria, with the Older Women's Cohousing project in London, whom many
US cohousers have met too, at one of the Coho/US conferences. And Peter,
the partner of Sarah Berger, from Laughton Lodge, whom some US cohousers
have also met. I had a great time with Mark, who's on the UK Cohousing
Network board, and whom, I suspect, was instrumental in the network's
inviting me to present at their conference. He's doing well! And his
community in Lancaster, Forge Bank, is now 8 months past move-in, with two
units still available.

The Threshold Centre is both a cohousing community  and a sustainability
education center, with a 300-year old timberframed  farmhouse with stone
floors as their absolutely beautiful Common House. They have 21 very small
two-story "row house" English-cottage-style units, some created from
existing buildings and some newly built. The place is charming and lovely,
just like one would imagine in a buccolic pastoral English countryside.
Their hospitality was superb and their food was delicious. It seems the
relatively new and small UK Cohousing Network is doing well.

Yesterday I did a workshop for Laughton Lodge Cohousing near Lewes in East
Sussex, another southern England county. They have the largest and most
amenity-filled Common House I've seen. The founders retrofitted a rural
hospital with three large U-shaped two-story wards. They converted the
wards into 21 one and two-bedroom units with lovely tall ceilings. Two and
three-story "English cottage"-looking buildings.  And converted the whole
hospital building into their common house with . . . a kitchen and dining
room, large living room with view of their 25-acre meadow, classroom, many
offices which residents rent. three whole apartments for cohousing
families, several guest rooms, a laundry room, and a large dance
floor/basketball court with a polished wooden floor. The _reason_ it's so
big and has so many amenities is that it was there already and an obvious
choice for a Common House. (And the cost to even just demolish it 15 years
ago would have been 80 pounds.) Laughton Lodge is also home to horses,
chickens, and I think pigs also. It was the first (or almost-first)
cohousing community in the UK, and its founders wanted to create it without
knowing about cohousing yet, but they soon found out. As Sarah Berger
shared in her slide shows at Coho/US conferences, the first few families
sold their homes in order to buy the place, but the 2-story ward buildings
weren't livable yet, and they needed places to live. So they all camped out
in the moldy and then-falling-down hospital building, and slowly renovated
it. Those were the days! Lots of stories and reminiscences about how
difficult/rewarding/heart-warming/bonding it was. ;)

So far I'm loving England and the lovely, hospitable people I'm meeting.

Diana

P.S. Ann, Jo Gooding, the director of the UK Cohousing Network will
contacting you about Cohousing Collabortative's Timeline Game. ;)