SV Cohousing Meeting Notes
January 23rd, 2000
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Lisa, Andey, Catya, Dave, Robyn, Laura, Kai, San, Janet, Michael, Joel, JB
Kids: Emma, Serena, Abraham, Eliana, Zach, Ryan, Joa, Pascal
(San is not feeling well)
Introductions all around
Robyn: Talking about the bios... everyone contributed a bio, and each
person takes a bio. going around the room and each person will
read the bio... 30 seconds each. Folks guessing who the bio is about.
Committees are changed since the last meeting.
Andey has brought up that procedure for changes post-last-meeting are really unclear.
"A number of changes were made and approved by the group" - change to the earlier meeting notes.
Andey would also like to amend that several people were approved to committees in absentia.
Catya and Janet would like to clarify who is doing what when for social gatherings. - Kai says "that's covered later in today's agendas."
Meeting schedule should be updated to 1st and 3rd, not 'every other' week.
with those amendments, minutes approved.
Andey suggests review of the mission statement... and official approval of most recent additions. Since we don't have a local copy, this is put off until the next meeting.
Janet would like to update schedule to not 'approve' membership procedures, but continue discussion on it.
Poster on color cards for meeting running: add contents to minutes
report on the revisions - Robyn reporting.
Changes: membership, adults, and children
Decision making - vote at end of the 2nd meeting: new wording: "Decisions may be brought up at
the next meeting only by members who were absent at the previous meeting"
Dues: added $ amounts, changed childcare to 100%
Dues (monthly) due the first meeting of the month - $50 due today
(note that's the official name - not 'organizing committee')
San: mostly organizing; not a lot of meat right now - san requests input for stuff to work on.
Diversity - San has contacts listed out - San requests help!
Catya and Mike
Mike says there's a procedure for publishing content.
Question: how much content on the contact list? Can we add birthdays? Kai brings up issues about privacy - Michael says the pages are not linked anywhere, and are not findable via searches or the like.
Mike talks about the 'prospective member' form.
Janet asks about security - there's financial requesting information on the form. Michael says all things coming in from the form go straight to the committee, and are not published or released - though this needs to be explored further...
Robyn - talked to 2 lawyers from New View. Matt Keifer - into the Boston Cohousing Network. scheduling a meeting with Carter Scott - worked in Lexington and an ecovillage in (VT?) Oak Tree developed Cambridge Cohousing - living there now.
Catya - Scott Hanson (author of the cohousing book) - said he'd be interested in putting in a proposal for 'things he can help us with'.
Robyn says Diane Wiley at Pioneer Valley - consultant for Process and Relationship stuff.
San says a quick visit with a consultant would be a good thing - soon - to make sure we're on the right track.
Dave suggests waiting a few meetings to let the group (SV group) get a little bigger first.
Catya expresses concern about working with cohousing consultants that don't have a lot of experience.
Robyn says everyone we've spoken to has cohousing experience.
Temporarily postponed to after the break.
Name discussion pushed to before the break...
Andey puts out that the Name discussion shouldn't be locked in since a lot of folks don't have email access, and are not keeping up with the email discussion.
We'll run through the entire list using flags to say "Yes" "No" "Indifferent"
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Joel asks how do we think the meeting is going - specially vs the last meeting
Robyn suggests we use the comment cards more often to 'jump in' if ther'es question.
There's a couple comments that it's rough with the kids...
Kai brings the names up again, we're down to
Tapestry
Tapestries
Resonance
Crescent Village
Candlelight Cohousing Community
Mosaic Commons
Fireside
Common Ground
Kai suggests that those who are 'up for' a certain name, should speak up and present their case for each one. - open discussion ensued.
We boiled the list down to Tapestry Tapestries Crescent Village Mosaic Commons
We've decided to defer decision until next week - where an absolute decision will be made. Much of the discussion brought up thoughts about what the name means, etc, and folks will continue along those lines. Dave brought up that 'Mosaic' sounds cold / dead, while Kai said Mosaics evoked strong images from his past.. Others were very into Tapestries, but there was a strong feminine / 'weaver bent to it, and might cause confusion. Other issues were "What are we trying to portray to other people?" Issues with "Crescent Village' is that it doesn't really say what we are or what we're doing - which may or may not be the image we want to portray.
Janet reviewed procedure from other cohousing groups in how they do things.
Wide range of procedures - meetings, complexity, etc. One would take a 'member' as someone who showed up to 3 meetings and paid $100 refundable. most were much more complicated.
Janet says Linda and she have not come into detail yet, they're still in research mode.
Laura says if folks have input they'd like into the membership process, they should email them to keep the information moving...
Janet says the '3 level model' is common... consensus breaking issues came up... but time limits the amount of discussion.
Kai brings up things as an example - Andey is uncomfortable with the email model... Kai suggests that we take the Central Costa Whatever cohousing model, which seems the best arranged, to come up with a 'simple model' for commentary.
Andey clarifies that her issue with email is mainly that there's no closure on the decision making that is out of email. If a decision is done in email, it should be 'ratified' in the meeting and show up in the minutes.
The membership committee will pull in the comments for the next 8 days in email, and look at them against the "Associate Member" and "Full Member" and "Supporting Member" definitions. Comments will be against or in support of those definitions, Janet and Linda will work them in.
San suggests that we bring in more people who have been interested in the periphery - the amount of work to do is overwhelming the people in the group.
Laura suggests hosting an informal get together next weekend.... it was bumped into the 'social calendar commentary' at the end of the meeting.
Robyn
2 prospective properties. Sudbury - they talked with the engineer... he presented some obstacles (road narrow, wetlands, access, etc. Broker is setting up a meeting with the owner. Appletree Farm - Lincoln - 12 1/2 acres. Farmhouse already there - 2story 2800 sq foot barn with plumbing and electricity.... outbuildings in place.
Michael brings up that the site size they're looking at is 5 acres at least...
Question comes up about land that borders on 'wetland' - mosquito issues. Laura voices that that would definitely an issue.
Robyn says there's a few sites in West Concorde, but it is about 35 minutes from SV school. Big advantage would be within walking distance of town. Robyn will give directions to Dave, and he'll drive the distance from SV to the site.
Kai is concerned about location, because he's not as familiar with local towns and how they'd commute.
Michael has a bunch of prefab floor plans - just to get an idea.
Laura handed out a great financial packet for details on what it's going to take to do the financing.
We'll probably have to put in money in the near future... this needs to be brought up soon.
Folks should start thinking about "there will be a few thousand dollars needed soon..."
Folks should also start thinking about sharing financial information with everyone else.
Kai is trying to come up with a plausible budget, and a plausible timeline for folks paying money into the project. He also brings up that we will have to be paying money out to professionals _SOON_ (ala, within weeks)
Kai will come up with numbers within email very soon.
Folks should have a good financial overview by the next meeting.
Andey knows someone who has already gone through cohousing startups, and there is a real chance that money paid in this early, though necessary, may not necessarily result in equity in the project. If the cohousing project fails, that money does not necessarily come back.
Catya brings up that folks putting out email that are things like "Must be for the next meeting" - that
the message have a very large comment in the subject...
Robyn is waiting to hear back from the Universalist church
Dave and Cat offered space in Bolton - but Kai is uncomfortable with the long drive.
Feb 6th next meeting - Dave/Cat/Zach/Scott not going to be able to make it.
We should try to get the major meetings in consistent spaces.
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Last
modified:
October 3, 2001
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