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

[David L. Mandel (dlmandel]

I'm glad that works for Mosaic, but for other communities not able to sustain 
such a level of central planning, scheduling and assigning, I've described 
before our much simpler system: Everyone is expected to be on a cook team, and 
based on general peer pressure, almost all participate. But the teams form 
themselves, range in size from one to four, schedule their own meals and divide 
labor as they choose. The quota, usually observed, is one meal per team member 
per quarter. With 36 people participating (an educated guess), that averages 12 
meals a month.
Payment is also simpler than many other systems I've heard about. If you sign 
up to eat a meal, your account is debited by a standard amount. When you cook, 
your account is credited for your reported expenses. It generally balances out, 
with very occasional need for correction, e.g. for some people who cook 
regularly but rarely eat others' meals. The task of bookkeeping is minimal, and 
we recently simplified it more, eliminating itemization on the monthly 
statements all receive.

It has worked well for 21 years.

David, Southside Park, Sacramento



On Saturday, August 23, 2014 6:40 PM, Elizabeth Magill <pastorlizm [at] 
gmail.com> wrote:
 



I'm also at Mosaic, and took on the "meals boss" role at the start
because that was my (almost) whole reason for joining cohousing (also,
I didn't want to cook or clean). (We actually don't call the role
meals boss, we call it "scheduler")

In looking at what other communities do, and from what I have read I
think a major difference of our community and others is that scheduler
role. We have people who don't want to ask other people to be on a
meal team, and we have people who are afraid they won't be asked to be
on a team. The scheduler assigns folk to teams, relieving the pressure
of asking others and the risk of them saying no.

The meals scheduler takes everyone's schedule, preferences, roles they
like  (Cook, assistant, clean-up) and creates the schedule for the
next two months. The new meals scheduler has added a "community
scheduling time" when anyone interested can come and help with this
task.

I also agree that we have had, from the start, a lot of great cooks,
and even as we have added new folk the percentage of people who love
to cook has been high.

ALSO I'll note that many communities that say "you have to cook"
actually mean you have to be part of the team that makes meals happen:
you may cook, clean, shop, etc.

In our community saying "you have to be on a team which will then
figure what your role will be" will not fly. People want to know that
they will be clean-up or assistant or cook.
Even our assistant position, which was intended to be worked out
between the cook and the assistant turns out to be almost always the
same sorts of tasks... not variable.

Liz Magill

On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 1:17 PM, 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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>



-- 
-Liz
(The Rev.) Elizabeth M. Magill
Worcester Fellowship
www.worcesterfellowship.org
508-450-0431

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