Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: an executive board for a coho community?

[Kay Wilson (kwilsonfisk]

We are legally organized as a condo under Washington State
law, and as such, we are required to have a board of
directors. (We were advised that the banks in our county
were not familiar with cohousing, but were comfortable with
condominiums, and that we would have difficulty finding
banks willing to finance construction if we were not a
condominium. Even so, it turned out that only one bank was
willing to finance us, and it has since gone out of
business!)

When we first started, some 8 years ago, the board had
monthly meetings. We were on a steep learning curve, and we
struggled to make sure we were operating legally, while
trying to maintain the cohousing spirit.

Over the years we gradually found a fairly good balance, but
that didn't happen until a year or so ago when we set up a
system to transfer board responsibilities to various teams.
Our board now meets quarterly, and calls special meetings as
needed. For example, we approved an amendment to our
Declaration of Covenants at our last community meeting, and
the board will be holding a special meeting to formally
approve the amendment and file it with the county.

We are now trying to formalize an accountability system
whereby the board can easily monitor the legally required
activities assigned to the various teams, to make sure
(hopefully) that nothing slips through the cracks.

One detail: we tried to set up a coordinating committee
consisting of team leaders to replace the board, but it
turned out that none of the team leaders were willing to
attend a monthly coordinating committee meeting.

Kay Wilson
Meadow Wood Cohousing
www.mwcohousing.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Cohousing-L
[mailto:cohousing-l-bounces+kwilsonfisk=comcast.net@cohousin
g.org] On Behalf Of Muriel Kranowski
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2015 1:51 PM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_ an executive board for a coho community?


I've been wondering if my community should have a formal
executive board or committee or the like. We don't, and
occasionally I think it would be good if we had some formal
body that we've given the authority to make a decision
PRONTO, but I can't think of a good example right now.

We do have an Urgent Issues Team that is authorized to deal
with stuff from outside, like the local government or a
lawyer wanting to contact us, or with a physical emergency
on site, but they don't make policy kinds of decisions.
Policy issues go to the plenary (or to committees under
their respective domains).

If your community has an Executive Something, can you
describe its composition, its purpose, and how it functions?
Ie, what's it for?

Thanks!
    Muriel at Shadowlake Village, Blacksburg, VA 

____________________________________________________________
_____
Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other
info at:
http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/