Cohousing-L Mailing List: Process Committees

[Melanie Mindlin (sassetta]

Hi Elizabeth

Our community started out with something called a Facilitation Committee which 
handled the formation of the plenary (whole group) meeting agendas and the 
facilitation of the meetings, along with some smaller tasks such as planning a 
yearly whole group training and ongoing discussion of facilitation techniques.  
There was a perception by a segment of the community that this group held and 
exerted unequal power within the community.  Though ostensibly open to all, 
some felt that it was cliquish and uncomfortable for others to join.

Upon the advice of facilitation trainer Laird Shaub, we attempted to separate 
these two main functions. and formed a new committee called the Process Team 
whose job was to collect and evaluate agenda items as to their readiness to 
come to the plenary meeting, and form the agenda.  The facilitation team was 
meant to be a separate group from which we would recruit facilitators for the 
meetings, and who would follow up with preparation with the presenters, as well 
as evaluating and improving facilitation skills.  The intention was to break up 
the power dynamic by having a different group of people with the power to set 
the agenda from those who had the power as facilitators to set the approach to 
discussion and decisions within the meetings.

Sadly, the new Process Team ended up being mostly the same people who had been 
resented on the earlier Facilitation team.  It was difficult to find other 
people to facilitate, partly because our meetings had become contentious, so 
this same small group would step up at the last minute to facilitate as well..  
Improvement of facilitation skills was pretty much dropped. 

The evaluation process  for “plenary readiness,” as well as needing consensus 
approval from the members of the Process Team for items to be on the agenda, 
while well intentioned and useful in some situations, ended up exacerbating the 
power dynamics in the group. Combined with some intransigent interpersonal 
conflict, we ended up in a tangle with about half the community wanting to 
dissolve the whole concept of self-management because it was so stressful.

At that point, we decided to try something completely different. We are now 
rotating facilitation through the entire community in alphabetical order, 
giving each meeting’s facilitator the power to set the agenda. Facilitators are 
encouraged to bring any topic or mini-training that they think is important or 
useful for the community to discuss. 20 minutes of each meeting is allocated to 
“business items” that require plenary approval. As a well-established 
community, we actually have very little business that is not handled within our 
committees who are all operating quite effectively. 

We’re almost a year into this, and about half way through our rotation, and 
things are going quite smoothly. The proposal was to revert to the previous 
structure when everyone has had a chance to facilitate, though I personally 
think this may not be such a good idea.

I understand that this may not work well for new communities with lots of 
business requiring their attention.  I’m sure others will write with copious 
suggestions, so I will just add that in my opinion, the more you can delegate 
to small groups, the easier your decision making process will be. 

Good luck with everything,
Melanie
Ashland Cohousing

Message: 4
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2022 13:01:42 -0800
From: Elizabeth Rosenau <ejrosenau [at] gmail.com <mailto:ejrosenau [at] 
gmail.com>>
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org <mailto:cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Cc: Caryn Robinson <c.robinson.am [at] gmail.com <mailto:c.robinson.am [at] 
gmail.com>>
Subject: [C-L]_ Process Committees
Message-ID: <5B9B2B03-865E-4C15-AD44-C67FBD556661 [at] gmail.com 
<mailto:5B9B2B03-865E-4C15-AD44-C67FBD556661 [at] gmail.com>>
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Hello,

I am part of a developing community in British Columbia.  We have twenty-seven 
equity members and we?ll have forty when we?re complete.  We hope to start 
building soon, but need a few more members to please the banks?

All of our growth has added a lot of complexity to the work of our committees 
and some of us are starting to think that the addition of a few more committees 
may help keep our group organized and running smoothly.

I understand that many communities have something called a ?Process Committee? 
and that there is a wide variety of mandates and tasks assigned to these 
committees.

I would be grateful if this community could share your experiences with Process 
Committees. If you have one, what kind of work do they undertake in your 
community?  Do these committees answer an important need for you and your 
community?

I appreciate any thoughts you may have to offer.

With Warmth,

Elizabeth Rosenau, on behalf of Compass Cohousing. (Langley, British Columbia)