Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Common meals - mandatory participation?

[Cat Belfer (catya]

On 8/21/2014 4:34 PM, Sharon Villines wrote:
> On Aug 21, 2014, at 11:58 AM, Diana Carroll <dianaecarroll [at] gmail.com> 
> wrote:
>
> > Mosaic commons meal program is voluntary and we have 3-4 meals a week most
> > weeks. I also think it's pretty popular.
>  From what you have read here, why do you think your program works and others 
> haven't been able to get i higher than one a week. We have many people who 
> would like more meals but it doesn't happen in a regular basis. We tend to have 
> one meal that a group self-organizes, and occasional celebrations of one kind 
> or another.

I definitely can't speak to why other communities don't get higher than 
1/week, and of course Diana may have a different take on the answer to 
this.  I'd say that in part it's the will of the group and important to 
us, and in part we have a great schedule boss & supporting cast (I'm one 
of the supporting cast).

We just did the meal schedule for September and October, and couldn't 
quite pull off 13 meals each month because of the number of cleanup 
volunteers, so we landed at 12/month.

I'm happy to talk about our system with whomever, or write it up...

On 8/21/2014 4:59 PM, Muriel Kranowski wrote:
>   I wonder if size of community makes a difference. How many households /
> adults live at Mosaic Commons and how many are at a typical meal?
>    Muriel

31 households.  probably ~60 adults?  A BIG meal is 45+, a SMALL meal is 
15-, typical is probably 30.


--
     - cat

Catya Belfer   -  www.catya.org
Technical Director   -   www.cohousing.org
Cohousing in MA - www.mosaic-commons.org