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

[Kathryn McCamant (kmccamant]

Whether its the first year you move into your community, or the journey to
get there, I think the culture you establish early in any community sets
the stage for decaded to come. Thus, I feel strongly about setting an
expectation about regular (at least 3x week) meals early on....in reading
this discussion, it seems that all the communities that have active
regular community meals highly value them and how they strengthen the
community. 

Katie 

>From Nevada City Cohousing, where we're doing something different today
with a progressive dinner thru the neighbhood...
-- 
Kathryn McCamant, President, Architect
CoHousing Partners, LLC
241 Commercial Street
Nevada City, CA 95959
T.530.478.1970  C.916.798.4755
www.cohousingpartners.com





On 8/22/14 10:17 AM, "Diana Carroll" <dianaecarroll [at] gmail.com> wrote:

>
>What Cat said...but looking a little deeper, maybe it's a product of the
>specifics of our group culture, which was shaped in part by a very long,
>difficult and emotionally painful development period. It took us several
>years to find land, including several painful (and expensive) false
>starts.
> During that whole period, our twice monthly Sunday afternoon meetings
>followed by potluck dinners were the glue that held the group together.
> Those shared meals were THE way the people in the group coalesced into a
>community.
>
>When we finally did get built and move in, our common house was unfinished
>and unavailable for a year or so (maybe more?  The memory is dim.)  it was
>hugely frustrating, and a big part of that was not having shared meals.
>We
>ended up using the first floor of one of our unsold units for common
>meals,
>which was logistically difficult, but having meals together was just
>*that*
>important to us.  When our common house kitchen finally came online, we
>had
>literally *years* of pent up frustration at the difficulty of sharing
>meals.  So participation in our shiny new meals program was VERY
>enthusiastic.
>
>Lots of people have moved in since our difficult early years and did not
>experience the frustration directly, but I think they pick up on the
>culture that was developed before they got here.
>
>...
>
>I also think we lucked out and got a freakishly large percentage of
>skilled, enthusiastic cooks.
>
>Diana
>
>
>
>
>On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 9:57 AM, Cat Belfer <catya [at] pobox.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> 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
>>
>>
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