Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Community process teams

[Fred-List manager (fholson]

Don Benson <benson6451 [at] gmail.com>
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Re: Community process teams (Sharon Villines)
Our Context:
Trillium Hollow, is a 29 family, multi-generational, cohousing
community in Portland OR.  We have a 20-year history of various
approaches to conflict resolution and process development in our
community. At one time or another, we have had a conflict resolution
team, a steering team, and no specific team with a responsibility to
improve our community processes or work to resolve conflicts.
Currently we have a group that is focused on helping community members
improve the quality of their individual interactions/engagements
within the community—Positive Engagement Team (PET).

PET has a dual mandate:  1) Provide a safe space for individuals in
conflict to get clear about difficult interpersonal dynamics,
supporting ways to engage in those conversations; and 2) help the
community, as a whole, to improve its capacity for dealing with
difficult issues.

At the present time, the group is in the process of reconstituting
itself, as some members wish to focus on the individual level
engagement task, and the remaining member looks to recruit others
within the community with interest and skills to focus on the
community capacity building task.

Our Request: We wish to understand the mandate/scope of work of
similar teams/groups in other communities, strategies they use for
building community capacity to engage in community level conversations
to deal with values tensions, and how these strategies have been
received/adopted by the community (or not)

Many thanks,

Don Benson
9601 NW Leahy Road #309
Portland OR 97229-6385
503.296.7249 home
510.701.9784 mobile

"Practice is the hardest part of learning” Ann Voskamp