Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Question about "dining clubs"

[Diana Carroll (dianaecarroll]

On Friday, September 13, 2013, Sharon Villines wrote:

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> Members who want to eat together privately, do so at home. The Common
> House is for common activities.


Is "the common house is for common activities" a policy at Takoma?  It's
definitely not here at Mosaic.  To the contrary, one thing we have
discussed many times is that we all chose to move into smaller homes than
is customary for housing in our area in part because we had "extra rooms"
in the CH.  so we don't need houses big enough to accommodate a guest room
or a home gym or a dining room big enough for big family functions or a TV
room, because these things are available in the common house.

So we allow and even encourage members to use the common house for any sort
of (reasonable) use, whether it's a community wide use (common meal),
private use (a dinner party I'm throwing for friends who are not in the
community) or in between (a kid's birthday party to which all similarly
aged kids in the community are invited.)

We do occasionally have scheduling conflicts (I want to schedule my dinner
party but you've reserved the room for a quilting bee) but we can usually
work those out.

We also occasionally have hurt feelings when something is exclusive (a
coffee klatch for a particular group of friends and someone else wishes
they could be a part of it) and these are harder but I don't get the
feeling they are that common.

I would definitely not be happy with a "common house is for common
activities" policy!

Diana

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