Cohousing-L Mailing List: Associate Membership Policies

[Susan Hyne (susanhyne]

Two years ago, CoHo Ecovillage (Corvallis, Oregon) revamped its Friends of
CoHo program and developed a new Associate Member program (with helpful
input from several communities via this email list).



We developed an affiliates policy, affiliates guidelines, and CoHo
membership guidelines (basically a color-coded spreadsheet listing
membership steps, rights, and responsibilities for all categories).  Email
me to request these files (susanhyne [at] gmail.com).



These materials were developed working closely with our "closest" Friend of
CoHo household who became our first Associate Member household in the new
program.  Despite our well-intentioned "outreach efforts," we learned it
was difficult to "reach in" to the community and get connected in a
meaningful way and it was unclear what Friends could/could not do at CoHo.
Thus, our policy and guidelines were designed to help us be more welcoming
AND to provide clarity.



We also wrote a blog posting on ways to connect with the community

https://www.cohoecovillage.org/blog/2012/01/ways-to-connect-with-coho-ecovillage/plus

and updated the Membership section on our website (www.cohoecovillage.org)
so information was more widely available.



Generally, our affiliates are active members of our community and the
process seems to be working well.
-- 
Susan Hyne