ACM minutes, May 10, 2023

Topics: shop/garage reorganization, chicken club indefinite approval, common house playground, hazard trees

All-Community Meeting, minutes Wednesday, May 10, 2023
7:00-8:45 p.m. in person at c.h. sitting room and online

Present: Vinnie, Chelsea (moving into #3 with Amy), Amy, Lila, Eliza (fac), Kerry, Jorge, Renae, Vicky, Laura, Mary, Cheryl, Robin, Kay (notes), Laraine, Carol, Linda

Check-In, what’s your favorite food?

Reorganization of the Shop/Garage

Emailed two weeks ago asking everyone to label anything that belongs to them in the garage or workshop.  Will be cleaning and organizing.  Inventory tools.  This weekend he found a bunch of tools he didn’t know the community owned, mostly corded.  Some of it may need maintenance before it’s usable.

Will be preparing a proposal this week.  Possibly lock-out plugs, storage for power tools used by Maintenance Committee.  Check out of equipment when residents borrow it. Post policies & procedures for cleanup.  Set up a vacuum station to control sawdust as it is created.

On-going problem that items migrate from the workshop to a home and nobody knows/admits to where it is. Maybe put radio tags on items?

Work parties will mostly be on weekends, for about three-hour blocks.  Vinnie will send out invites.

Chicken Club Request for Indefinite Approval

The Chicken Club has been expected to do a proposal each year or anytime they bought replacement chickens.  They are requesting an indefinite approval.

The ordinance allows 25 chickens per license/coop.  It would be possible if people wanted to have an additional coop and license to have more.  An additional license would require a proposal.

The Cooper is cleaned twice a year.  In between, new material is put over the top of the old material, allowing the older material to compost underneath. 

Sometimes new residents have thought chickens they are moving in with can simply join the flock. Apart from exceeding the license limit, adding chickens upsets the flock hierarchy and risks introduction of disease.  Welcoming Committee might raise this issue with new residents — options such as using a different coop, and would require a license from the city and a proposal with the community.

This was a draft proposal discussion.  A proposal will be prepared.

Common House Playground

The people Vinnie has talked to would not consider sanding/resurfacing the uprights.  He didn’t ask about rebuilding it without resurfacing the uprights.

Parents met.  Two camps — leave it as is or tear it down. Already there, doesn’t require a lot of on-going maintenance (overlooking work needed to bring it up to code); OTOH issue of liability, splinters.  Any playground we could afford wouldn’t be as nice or as versatile. It would be difficult and expensive to recreate or replace it with something equivalent.

Replace the fort deck and walls; put eight or nine quotes or sealant on the posts; a cap and wax coating on top.  In Vinnie’s opinion, could probably get another twelve or fifteen years out of it. Toxins have has probably leached out of the weathered surface of the poles, but there are deep cracks with exposed surface.

Vinnie guesses $2 to $3K for materials. Get a professional assessment and advice, but most of the work could be done by residents.

The structure is suitable for older children rather than toddlers.

The ladder is seriously unsafe for small kids and needs replacing.  Can get caps to put over exposed bolts.

Trees, Management Report

Basically, Management recognizes and respects the passion people feel for trees, but unfortunately an occasional tree becomes a risk of high liability such as damage to our buildings.  Management regrets it, but removal of those is nonnegotiable.

A couple of trees are threatening structures.  The tree in front of 15/17 (Vinnie/Eliza & Kerry) needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later; it is heaving ground and is a potential threat to the foundation.  

No one person or household can just make a decision that they will take a tree out; it is a community decision.

Committee Reports

Welcoming.  National Open House went well.  #24 is under contract. Open houses are useful because they give us a list of people who know about us and are familiar with the concept of cohousing.  

East garden.  Had a meeting and worked out who has what bed.  Beds still available; contact someone from the east garden if you are interested.

Maintenance meeting tomorrow 7:00 pm.

Announcements

Couple staying in common house next week, the 18th and 19th. Needs someone to be host since Wasons will be out of town.

Start planning for 25th anniversary in 2024.  

Liinda has a lot of raspberry starts to give away.

Sing-along on June 10th. Acoustical. 10 to 11 a.m.

Baking party went well.  Next one maybe in two weeks, the 21st?

Storage Bin

• Fire pit
• Parking non-resident cars
• Fund raising
• Committee rules and operations
• Committee vs. clubs
• Overriding blocks

Checkout:  Did what happened in this meeting fit with what you wanted when you moved into cohousing?

• Collaborative creative discussion for solving a problem without much money
• Brainstorming
  
• All the generations at the meeting (baby)

Emailed 5/17/2023.