Minutes, All-Community Meeting, Wednesday January 26, 2025, 3:00

Topics: values

Present: Ben, Cheryl, Lila, Kerry, Jorge, Michael, Robin, Kay (notes), Laraine, Gheybin, Jordan, Sara (#5), Emily

Decision:  Form an ad hoc work group to examine vision statement & values, update, revitalize, & provide recommendations to the community.

Sara Walsh & Steven Chodoriwsky

Committee Reports & Announcements

Maintenance.  Coleman & friend have opened a general contracting firm.  He is being hired to diagnose & repair water damage in stacked units; it keeps recurring every time we think it's been fixed.

Common House. Sitting room has had primer applied everywhere.  The ceiling is finished.  The final coat will be a very pale yellow/offwhite. Will be installing new lights and a fan. Work party probably Wednesday.

Monthly Cleaning Teams. Passing around a clipboard, please indicate your first through fourth preferences for which months you will be on a cleaning team.  Kerry will send an email the first of each month reminding the team & asking who is doing lock up. 

Kerry has heard a number of compliments on how clean the common house is.  She really appreciates hearing that and even more appreciates everyone's efforts to keep it that way.

Pay or Play. Billing for 2024 pay-or-play should be coming out soon. Ben is working with the bookkeeper to arrange monthly statements.

ACM  Planning.  Meets Sunday before for Sunday ACMs, Wednesday before for Wednesday ACMs.  Anyone who has topics they would like discussed, feedback on meetings, etc. is encouraged to attend.  If you can't attend you may request a topic for the agenda using the online form, or talk to a committee member.

Vision and Values

The current Vision and Values was written in the early 2000s, before most current residents lived here.  The current residents need to own the community's values. We need buy-in.

The values need to take into account new realities -- it wasn't as obvious how climate change would affect things.

Situations can bring values into conflict, where it's hard to find a path that doesn't sacrifice one or another.  Recognize this happens and that choices may be necessary, or look for another solution that respects both.

 Silver Sage's value statement is much shorter.  We could consider how to distill, simplify, or consolidate these. Very clear, concise.  Can we identify commonalities or underlying themes and combine them? By examining linkages, we might discover some of the statements are just restatements.

This is a bit wordy, overwhelming.  We need to consult our values when making decisions, which might happen more often with more concise statements.

Values are present progressive verbs, -ing words. Values should lead to actions.

Committees can be a reflection of values.

Rather than claiming we do things that we sometimes fail at, language should maybe be more aspirational. 

Get copies of other communities' statements rather than reinventing the wheel.

Some things that don't seem represented, inexplicit, under-emphasized:

•  maintaining what we have (facilities & relationships)
• safety
• communication 
  
• active listening
  
• participation
• expectations and accountability, consequences
  
• approach conflict with curiosity

Get back to cooperative culture, rather than either mainstream competition or counter-culture.

The original values were formulated entirely in community meetings (with breakout groups, a retreat, etc.) over the course of months. That probably contributed to the values including everything and the kitchen sink.

Upon examining our values, we might decide that a different governing structure would help us fulfill them. Values can conflict with consensus with unanimity.

Next step:  Do we form an ad hoc working group?  Straw poll, most of those present feel it is worthwhile to work on the values.  Interested in being in group:  Kerry, Lila, Laraine, Sara, Jordan, Ben.