Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Oxford cohousing?

[Ann Zabaldo (zabaldo]

Hi Charles!

I found this by just googling the name:

http://www.oxfordcohousing.org.uk/

They also have a FB page.

And ... if you check the recent messages on this list you'll see some missives 
from Diana Leafe Christian ... I bet she has a contact there.  You might drop 
her a note off line and ask her.

Best --

Ann Zabaldo
Takoma Village Cohousing
Washington, DC
Principal, Cohousing Collaborative, LLC
Falls Church VA
703-688-2646

On May 23, 2013, at 1:50 AM, Charles Nuckolls wrote:

> 
> Are there any cohousing groups in the vicinity of Oxford (UK)?  I will be 
> there for three weeks in July, and would enjoy meeting them.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Charles W. Nuckolls
> Provo, UT
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Diana Leafe Christian <diana [at] ic.org>
> To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org 
> Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 6:20 AM
> Subject: [C-L]_ Lovely UK Cohousing Network conference at Threshold Centre 
> Cohousing, Dorset
> 
> 
> 
> 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. ;)
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: 
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: 
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
> 
>