All-Community Meeting Tuesday February 12, 2025

Topics:

Present:  Ben, Sara, Larraine, Robin, Kerry, Lila, Mike, Vicky, Michael, Linda, Kay (notes), Gheybin, Lynda, Emily, Coleman & Tobi, Cyd

Venue: In the newly painted sitting room.

20 seconds of gratitude for everything that has been done in the community in the past.  Sparkly wine or apple juice, celebrating the "new" sitting room and everybody who helped.

The second green couch may stay in the dining room, TBD.

Committee Reports & Announcements

Carol Smith has passed on.  Memorial at Larkin Mortuary, 260 E S Temple next Thursday February 20 from 2 to 4.  Vicky will host something in the common house from 4 to 6.

Kerry passed out a list of the monthly cleaning teams.  There will be dedicated cleaning supplies.

New study group, Senior Study Group, Sat Feb 22 at ~10:30 after cafe. . Considering topics documenting important information , understanding ss & med, health directives, wills, estate planning, housing as we age. Bringing in expert guest speakers when we can find them. 

Linda would will need a ride to Carol's service & would like to see a carpool. 

Book club, Feb 28 Friday, 7:00 pm movie "Night Bitch", for females & non-binary.

3/13 - 3/16 Thirteen guests.from national cohousing group staying at common house and individual homes.    Sponsored by Fund Raising; cohousing group will be donating. Will need volunteers to pick up and drop off at airport.

March 13 Thursday night, 6 to 9 pm community potluck & storytelling time around the topic of community..

March 14, Friday night dance, $5 donation. Appetizers, finger food. 

Community Governance - Pluses and Deltas - What's working & what could change

Our past & current governance model is consensus.  It has worked well when we have applied it well. We are still here!

When committees are doing well, they keep the community from bogging down with details of small decisions.  We've had some healthy committees recently.  We have to be able to trust committees in the areas they have been given responsibility.  Transparency helps with trust.

Management recently has been very good at handling our money, looking for opportunities to keep costs down & to use our money to make money.

Nature is a part of the community.  The community has gone through difficult problem solving to keep nature in our community.

Lots of activities, s[ending time with each other.

Shelter.

Solving problems that are inherited.

Pluses of Consensus

• Able to hear from everybody.
• Hold back your opinion to listen.
• Have open & healthy relationships, honor each other.
• Group-based decision making
• Need healthy relationships for consensus to work.  Get tribal otherwise.
• Budget process this year felt good. Felt heard.
• Consensus pushes you to be creative. 
• Focus less on individual preferences and more on what you can tolerate, letting go of needing to have things your way.
• Non-hierarchical and interested in involving everyone. 
  
• Consensus recognizes that everyone's opinion counts. 
• Need to be open to changing your opinion.  We ask people to keep an open mind while listening to others rather than making up your mind first.

Deltas:  What I’d like to see more of

• Gossip affects the person being talked about even if they don't hear it, and it affects everyone else.
• More education, more reading books together
• We're not perfect.
• Eat together more.  Not as many people are coming to meals as used to.  Why aren't people coming?
• Avoid wrong-spotting. Use "tell me more."  Learn to give helpful feedback.
  
• Get a more succinct, focused values statement.  Current one seems scatter-shot and wishful thinking.
• Clarity on what is a committee decision and what is plenary worthy.
• Accountability and some sort of process for email and conflict.  Not responding is not a good option.  No way to deal with conflict avoidance.
• Have an agreement that residents sign that they will work on conflict.
• We have some procedures for what the conflict committee can do, which we need to make more available.
• There's no enforcement even when we have guidelines.  How do we have consequences?
• Being snarky can be disrespectful to the community.
• Review our procedures & policies.

Consensus Deltqs

• Define "our" type of consensus. 
• Learn the vocabulary of consensus.
• There are many different forms of consensus.  Many/most(?) cohousing communities use some form of consensus, but with variants. We could look at other consensus models. 
• Are we educating residents adequately on how consensus works?  

Proposals. 

• Make proposals more succinct and clear proposals.
• Clearly define whether a proposal is coming from a committee or from an individual.
• Need proposals to practice the process. Have had only one in the past year.
• Do a practice proposal when the issue isn't thorny.
• Think people would take a practice proposal more seriously and learn more if it's an actual decision -- maybe something we wouldn't normally bother with a proposal, but something real.  Maybe a committee-level decision; maybe nonbinding.
• We do have proposal guidelines (approved by proposal!), which we may need to advertise better.
• If you'd like to participate coming up with a practice proposal, attend ACM Planning this Sunday after potluck.

Blocks. 

• When is a block valid? Variant: Consensus minus one -- a single person can't block.
  
• When a single person wants to block, should be their responsibility to get with the proposal authors & work with them.