Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Community Gatherings

[Pare Gerou (paregerou]

Hi Rebecca,

I hear you about hybrid Zoom/ in-person meetings.   Our group is forming
(like yours) and international (like yours). You have started building, and
we are breaking ground on utilities this year and hope to be finished
building by the very end of next year if we are lucky.

We found hybrid meetings and events imperfect at best, and in my opinion,
there is no great way to make them ideal for both in-person and Zoom-based
participants -- unless you hire someone like Raines & Betsy Cohen (see
below).  In hybrid meetings, you can try to make the member
experience equal, but that compromises the in-person experience.
 Our group found a way that we are quite happy with.  Now that you are
building, our way may not work for you, so I mention below my experience of
when it was at its best when hybrid as well.

But we decided against attempting great hybrid meetings.  We decided to
conduct all of our meetings on Zoom, even when some of us are in Greece
together.  We decided to conduct all of our events and trips to Greece and
design workshops and special fun times in person, even when not every
member can get to Greece.  We do actually do the hybrid thing as well, but
we decided not to try to make the experiences equal.  We maximize
the experience in person, and those who are in Zoom catch what they can.
When we meet for routine meetings, we maximize the experience on Zoom, and
if people want to be in the same physical room while on Zoom that is theirs
to figure out.  We find focusing solely on routine Zoom-based meetings has
improved our sociocratic rounds and listening, and we find
prioritizing getting together in person several times a year for many days
to design and have fun and travel to be really satisfying and meaningful
and something to look forward to, and while some try to join on Zoom to
catch what they can,  focusing on the in-person means we are organic and
spontaneous and are not constantly reined in by technology and
camera frames.

But having said that, some cohousing professionals do the hybrid experience
extremely well in controlled settings-- The most successful and equal and
meaningful experience in our experience requires hiring someone like Raines
Cohen to coach you and show you how to do both very well together. He and
Betsy are really masters at this.  It made all the difference in the world
for us when Raines and Betsy helped us a few trips ago in Greece.  They did
a wonderful job we wer all grateful for- they added so much.  We have not
been able to do it as well since. Raines also does a tremendous live events
feed experience for marketing purposes as well.  I remember watching his
live feed of Houston cohousing's wonderful breaking ground ceremony.  It
looked like so much fun!  Here is Raines and Betsy:
https://www.cohousingcoaches.com/.  They would be ideal professionals for
you guys at Treehouse- I know several of you, and you would all really love
them.

By the way-- tell Katherine and Clara that we loved having them at our New
Year's forming group mixer.  You have so many wonderfully talented people
at Treehouse!  We learned a lot from you.

Hope this helps,
Pare Gerou
www.GreekVillageCohousing.com





On Sat, Jan 28, 2023 at 8:44 AM Rebecca J. Hogue <rjhogue [at] gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> We are a community that is under construction – and we have about half of
> our members in town and the other half remote. We are trying to figure out
> how to reimagine our full circle (full community) gatherings. I’m
> wondering, what others in this situation do or have done? Over Covid it was
> easier as we did our gatherings 100% over zoom, but that isn’t serving our
> community well anymore.
> Any thoughts on what might work?
> Thanks
> Becky (Treehouse Village Ecohousing – https://treehousevillage.ca).
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