Cohousing-L Mailing List: Forming Group Cripled by New Members

[Jennie Lindberg (jennielindberg1]

There are several things that Sunnyside Village Cohousing has done that I think 
have been helpful to prevent communication and relationship problems. The best 
was to engage Karen Gimnig as our Process Consultant early on in our forming. 
She helped us (and continues to help us to this day) navigate through difficult 
situations. Secondly, we have been using Sociocracy as our governance model and 
I believe it is an effective model for decision making. We have taken classes 
together on Sociocracy, had a book discussion group and use Sociocracy in our 
meetings. Another thing we did - actually in the very beginning -   was to make 
a list of our values, and create a mission and vision. These are prominent on 
our website, so people exploring our community can tell from  the beginning 
what is important to us. We try to make it clear to people that it is the 
community, not their own personal needs, that should guide them in their 
decision making. We do lots of relationship building activities, both in our 
meetings and in our quarterly retreats. Our retreats alternate with in person 
(hybrid), and virtual to build relationships with each other. In our 
communication with each other we try to model respect, patience and openness 
with each other.
These activities have all required a substantial investment of time and 
emotional energy, and I, for one, have had much return on my investment.
We are still a group under construction, so don’t have experience yet with 
living in close proximity to each other but we have been able to navigate 
several sticky situations successfully thanks to these strategies.
Jennie Lindberg
Co-Founder, Sunnyside Village Cohousing