Minutes of Mosaic Commons
General Meeting
October 15, 2000, 3:30-6:30pm
Location: Parmenter
Notetaker: Dave
Present: Sam, Kai, Dwight, Steph, Dave, Cat
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Opening Activity - suggested by Steph
"What has been the overriding theme in your life for the last month"
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San says we don't have a printed list of the minutes, however agenda is approved with this change: Action item 24: says 'contact catya', and it should be 'contact kai'. With this change,j minutes are approved. Steph adds a request for topic: wants to bring up question about monthly dues from email.
Committee reports:
Coordinating committe.. "We have an agenda and a place to meet" - we have reservations at Parmenter through December. Should look at other possible sites for the new year.
Secretary report:
Lisa not attending.
Marketing and Membership report:
Cat asks todo an advertisement in local papers ($80.00) or/and in the Metro West Daily News for next week for the next orientation. Deadline is next monday 5pm. Steph asks if it's in the real estate section, cat suggests putting it in the Current Events section. Everyone agreed to use the Current Events section. This run would go in 2 releases, one zone on Tuesday, one zone on Thursday. Everyone is cool with it. APPROVED.
Cat sez: Scott did contact AARP, and they're interested in doing a story and looking at our material. Cat has contacted the person directly, and is waiting for a response.
Steph asks why don't we network with the Boston Area Cohousing folks and maybe share some costs.
Cat says Patti from the JP Cohousing folks contacted her and asked her about Chris coming out and doing a feasibility study for JP.
Cat sent something to the interest list asking for "what would folks like to see" - orientation, organization, etc. One of the big feedbacks from the list was "have the orientation on he same day as a meeting", so we're going to try and head in that direction.
Action item for cat: compile and post to the list the feedback she got from the list on this item.
Item 13: cat did it, and agreed.
Item 14: sarah has not sent the material yet.
Item 15: dwight did contact new view, cambridge, some other place, and only heard back from Cambridge. They said "we'd be delighted to include a flier in the next mailing, and they're about to do a mailing, since they have a unit available." The flier should be in to them by the end of this week. Dwight's going to check on how many. Cat suggests that the current tri-fold flier is 'too generic' - it's targeted at folks who do not know about cohousing. Cat suggests using the 'one page' flier (the one with the tear-offs). Action item for cat: to send the .doc file for the one page flier to dwight, who will handle all the printing and getting it to Cambridge.
Dwight says we haven't hearf from New View at all, and will call them directly. Kai says the sudbury valley flier went out, and when Kai was at a school event, there was a lot of good chitchat about it. Kai and San will mention it more to
folks.
Website:
San says the Orientation date on the website is still old, Action item for cat to check it. Emma also asks about the playground picture, which apparently is missing.
Finance:
Cat sent the scaling process around, Dwight had a comment about it, and says he posted it ot he list.
Treasurers report:
Cat runs over the numbers as handed out. San asks for some clarification about what was included into the calculations. Cat went over the numbers with her, and suggested details off line. Cat suggests folks be better about using the paper receipt book better, and dwight raises concerns about current record keeping, and it should be tracked a little better. Cat asks that the next person to be treasurer should implement that, which looks like it'll be Sarah. She'll be happy to implement a more structured process. San will give Cat some updated numbers to Cat after the meeting.
San asks if the folks have left owe us money at all, and Cat says that Janet and Joel probably owe us, but also have contributed a lot in Zoning docs, etc, so it should balance out fine.
Land and Site:
Once again, dwight -definately- says he's called and gotten all the phone numbers. :) San had a couple questions about how Chris was on the mailing list, and Cat says the list has changed a bit - Kelley's on the list now. Dave says that 'sale prices' are not specific down to the configuration of the house. San says she can talk to her Real Estate agent about getting this sort of information. Kai wil contact the agent and get in touch with Dave.
7: not done.
8: harrass michael.
Professionals:
San brings up we had talked about bringing someone in to do a Process Workshop, and wonders what hapepned about that. Dave said he thought it wasn't appropriate now, Cat agreed. A long debate ensued, trying to figure out where the focus of such a workshop should be - could it be targeted at both community building, as well as process management. Dwight offers to coordinate it, as long as we can get the contacts to him. Pioneer Valley has information on folks good at this. The professional should be a -facillitator-, not a lecturer. Kai suggests that the professional should contact each of the folks ahead of time to get an idea of what should be covered and what folks' issues and goals are. November 19th-ish. Cat shows an orange card, and we agree that moving it off to January would make a lot more sense. (jan 21st?). Dwight suggests: "Goal for the meeting: come out of this meeting in January with a 'set of assumptions' - maybe a process docment, that can be given to new members... sort of a vision statement (says Kai), but more fleshed out. San suggests that the meeting in January may be 'in addition to' a business meeting, rather than instead of.
San asks Steph "since this is being put off until January, is theresomething we can do ahead of time?" - steph says there's no -problem- right now, she's thinking ahead for other new people, and getting to know other folks in the current group better.
Legal:
Dwight still has to meet with Kai. Dwight and Kai will talk about this on the 19th.
Sidebar:
There was a long discussion regarding group dynamics and how to handle new folks coming in and forming of community. No absolute decision came out of it, but things were voiced.
Membership Policy:
Cat spent a long time on the phone wth Kelley about this. Kelly suggested that the beginning of the meeting we go over the financial procedure and issues. at -every- meeting.
2nd - she said these sort of questions are 'totally normal'. Chris is great for providing 'paths', and showing groups what the proper directions are. kelly says "Very similar to buying a house x30 - bank requires 20% down, and you need tha tmoney in before the construction loan." So, the answer is "what happens if you don't have that money in before the constructioin loan is due, and the answer is basically "you don't start building". Just like a normal house purchase.
San loan: there are potential sources of bridge loans that get you to the construction loan, to the point where you're not ready for it, and will cover the gap. Cornerstone did this.
Cat brings up that working with the 'streamlined' model gives us one advantage
- we only need to come up with 10% of the total cost, rather than 20%.
(further commentary will come directly from cat's notes)
(make sure to cover 'the new england thing', cat)
San asks for the writeup of Chris's 'bucket' model,and cat thought someone already had that as an action item. Kai will do it.
A long discussion resulting from Cat's commentary from Kelly's phone call regarding the $1000 monthly fees and equity membership. The suggestion came up regarding waiting until we actually have somewhere between 3 and 5 houses as full contributing equity members (ala, contributing a minimum of $1000 a month). This is a -very- intense issue, and many folks suggested this be discussed at length in the next meeting. No decisions at this time.
finance issues:
one is the 'monthly bar' for minimum payments?
Chris will be in town November 13th and 14th, and we can save a bit on airfares, etc. This will be primarily jurisdictional research, talking with townfolks, etc etc. San asks how much time would this be for thr group, cat thinks "one or two evening meetings." Cat will also check on the airfare thing. Homeport is still willing to pay half. Steph and dwight and Kai will talk together about getting the numbers. Cat will let folks know what the deadline is. Dwight asks: "Do we get a brak on the airfare, and 2nd, when do we need to know?"
Dave promises to do the timeline this week.
Dwight will re-post his question about scaling to the list.
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Cat suggests that a coming meeting spending a lot of time on vision statement.
Oct 29th, doing stuff at San's house, helping move things?
Socialstuff - pumpkin carving!
everyone bring food for folks.
Nov 12th social event at Dwight and Stephs. - 6ish.
dwight and steph helping with orientation.
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Last
modified:
October 3, 2001
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