Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Meals

[Bryan Syverson (bryan.syverson]

Here in Fresno, we recently added on to our common meals program something
we call "Roundabouts".  They are small group dinners.  Since the groups are
generally 6-8 people, folks get a chance to actually engage in a somewhat
deeper level of conversation than is possible at a large common meal.

Folks voluntarily put their name in a box if they want to participate.
They indicate the number in their party, whether they can host, and, if so,
how many they can host.  Following each monthly community meeting, I take
the names out the box and randomly set up groups, assigning diners to
hosts.  I notify the groups by email.

Each group then decides on how to share a meal in the next month; they set
when, where, and how.  Typically, they go potluck, but this isn't
specified.  (If one family offered to cook for everyone, that would be
OK!)  Generally, the host coordinates.

Most of the time, the host has the dinner in his/her unit, but occasionally
they've signed up to use the common house.

Participation in our common meals program is supposedly an expectation for
every resident:  cook once a month (on a cook team of 2) and cleanup twice
a month (on a team of 4).  But more than a third of our residents don't
participate at all.  A third participate a little bit and a third make up
the core of the common meal system.

Since the primary goal of common meals is to build community, I'd hoped
that Roundabouts might accommodate the difficulties of those who didn't
participate in common meals (such as dietary preferences, feeding small
children, and our typical 6pm start time.)

In the first round in February, more than half of the community signed up.
Since then, though, participation has dropped off significantly.  The folks
participating in Roundabouts are the same folks who participate in common
meals!  It does address the "noise and commotion" issue, though.

-Bryan Syverson
La Querencia Fresno Cohousing, CA



> From: Rod Lambert <rod [at] ecovillage.ithaca.ny.us>
>
> I think Igor's experience is fairly common. I often hear that sentiment
> expressed at meals especially if there's a lot of noise and commotion which
> is common. Some people thrive in that environment, some don't. I'm aware of
> a number of people who don't even come to the meals because of it. Some of
> us have tried "co-dining" on a few occasions but it seems to fizzle out
> eventually. Many of the people who don't come often prefer to have a few
> people over for dinner in a more intimate, conventional way.
>
> Rod Lambert
> EcoVillage at Ithaca, NY
>
>
> From: iggypopsa1 [at] aol.com
> I hear and read so often that community meals are the
> lifeblood or the core of community life and I often struggle with this
> concept (and maybe because deep down I'm an introvert?).  For me, I find
> that the depth with which I can connect with a person varies inversely to
> the number of people there are at the table.  So, for me, if I'm sitting
> with 1 or 2 other people, it seems that I can more easily find out about
> what's really going on with another person versus when sitting at a table
> of 6-7 people it seems that the conversation tends to stay a little more
> (for lack of a better term) "superficial."  Do others find this to be the
> case, and if so, are there creative ways that communities have addressed
> this phenomenon?  For example, do some communities have large tables as
> well as smaller tables for meals? Igor Cerny*
>