Present: Jean, Rosa, Roxanne, Catya, Dave, Zach, Kim, Rick, Stephanie, Sanford, Susan & Guest, San, Kai, Emma, Pascal, Paul & Debbie & Justin & Jeremy, John, Judy, Lisa, Christie, Ken, and Keith
Facilitator: Rosa
Notes: Steph

Decisions:
Consensus reached that conference calls will be limited to Equity Members and Associates.

Approved reimbursing Catya for the purchase of Cohousing Conference audio tapes. (total of $340).

Approved the Affordability Statement

The treasurer will provide bills on the first of the month, and members and associates will pay them by the 15th or at the 3rd sunday of the month meeting.

Action Items:

Agenda:

1. Opening Activity
Dave picked "If you could take a one month trip anywhere in the world and money were no consideration." from the Book of Questions

2. Review of colored cards and ground rules
Rosa did so

3. Review and approve minutes from previous general meeting(s)
Approved

4. Approve Agenda
Steph asked about the conference call. It is going to be covered in the committee reports
Approved.

5. Signing of Associates Document
Kim and Rick did so. Yay!

6. Report from Conference
Cat and Dave went to the Cohousing Conference in California. They met with many many people including Chris ScottHanson, Zev, Nashama, and did a lot of networking. Cat went to most of the presentations. Cat purchased a set of audiotapes from the presentations which will be put up on the BCN website. She has a lot to share and a lot of ideas to go over with us, but thinks it might be best to wait until we all hear the tapes and then discuss.

7. Committee Reports and Action Items
Coordinating Committee
· Cat went to a session with Nashama. She feels it would be best to contact her for marketing after we have a site. She recommended (and Cat agrees) that we need to get a subscription to the Concord and Acton papers and when there are articles about land, real estate, etc. that we should send a letter to the editor right away.
· Cat worked on the FAQ but San will still review and update if necessary.

Finance
· Kai raised the issue of when we should require people to become prequalified for a mortgage. Right now we don't require this to become an equity member, but perhaps we should do this for when we get to the unit selection stage. This action item will be left on.
· Cat printed out a Financial Worksheet to be helpful for us to determine how much money one could put in if you were 100% comfortable. If people have additional sources of money, send them to Cat in email or mark up the sheet and give it to her at the end of the meeting.

Affordability
· Rick has done quite a bit of work. What he has discovered is that Cohousing already has affordability built right into it since we will be buying in bulk. Cat pointed out that this hasn't been the experience of other cohousing groups - that they come in at or above market rate. Why? Common house, customization. One key point made in the report he summarized is a special fund designed to help people with less means. Rentals can make money for the group. Shared ownership can be another option to make things affordable.
· Rick asked "What is a Limited Equity Coop" - it is referenced in the report he was reviewing. Susan took an informed guess about what it might be. Jean found it referenced on pg. 59 of the Cohousing Resource book.
· We need to decide what our policy is about when our monthly payments are due. Cat proposed that Dwight/Treasurer would send out the bill by the 1st of the month and that people should pay them by the 15th or at the second meeting of the month. **Future agenda item

Conference Call with Chris Report

• He seemed to be encouraged by the work we've done and have for him to do so far. He has a long list of action items for us.
• The tone of the conversation was good - it was mostly making sure tha tChris had all of the information that he needed to begin work. Chris was very interested in talking with the horse farm company.. Wetherby Real Estate. People typically list their properties with them when they don't want them traditionally developed. He will be looking at the golf course real estate issue in Acton.
• Next call Thursday, August 9 at 1:30
• It has been suggested that the calls be limited to Associates or Members. We came to consensus that these conference calls will be limited in the future to Equity Members and Associates. ***DECISION
• San asked about the Framingham site and how that's going. We don't know… need to ask Chris.
• There is also another area of Framingham that seemed to indicate that there might be other areas in Framingham that are open to the type of building that we want to do based on a newspaper article that Roxanne found. Steph asks if it is worthwhile to ask Chris to revisit Framingham as an option. Discussed whether it is worth our while to have Chris reconsider Framingham. Roxanne has already sent this article to Chris. Cat will ask him if he has looked at the article and whether he thinks it indicates Framingham is worthwhile to pursue again.
• Chris is coming out here the 14th and 15th of August. We will be meeting the evening of the 14th and then some of us may go with him to look around on the 15th. Meeting will be held at John and Judy's home in Natick. John and Judy will send directions to their home to the list.

Land/Site
Updated Action Items

8. Review draft of affordability statement

• Rosa drafted an affordability statement. Kai pointed out that we are not "considering" a voluntary sliding scale, but that we have actually agreed to do it. Made a few order changes.
• Cat pointed out that there have been some interesting emails on silent second mortgages on the cohousing-l list. These are very common in cohousing communities but rarely talked about.
• Proposal: to approve this statement with the changes. Approved! Rosa will post to the list when she has rewritten it.

--------BREAK----------

9. Committee Reports and Action Items

Marketing and Membership

• Cat sent around an email about the "How to get involved" which she would like to add to the welcome kit. She passed it around for people to review and approve. Approved by consensus.
• One of the things that she got out of the cohousing conference is that it is a good idea to have a Marketing Plan - things like "we need x members by this time". Cat sent out an email with what some other groups have done successfully with marketing. John, Judy, and Kim are all interested in working with Cat and Rosa on the marketing issue.
• Cat talked to Stella about our ad in the Cohousing journal - needs to followup.
• Kim is still waiting to hear back from AARP.
• Roxanne found out that 1-2 months for ad in Utne reader is $4.75per word.
• Who is Jackie? We don't know. She responded to the interest-list posting saying she was planning to get involved. She is going to be up to visit at some point in the fall. This raises the question of what to do with people who are interested who are not local - right now our membership process doesn't allow for that. San pointed out there have been some discussions on the cohousing-l list. **This is something to consider for future discussion.
• Kim has been working on trying to get flyers at the farmers markets.
• Catya brought some "Ask me about Cohousing" pins and passed around for people to take
• Catya made two significant expenses: $200 for a set of audiotapes and $140 for a knowledgable lawyer's time. She would like to be reimbursed for those expenses. Approved to reimburse her for these expenses.

Website

• Catya did a lot of work on the website.
• Dave needs to rework the search engine.

Secretary

• Still need to get documents from Lisa

Professionals

• No work on this right now.
• Patty from JP will be using a person .. Laird?… who will be leading their process group. San will move this up on her priority list as something to arrange since we will be needing this soon.

10. Operating Agreement

• Kai has been working on updating the Policy Handbook. Kai passed out a TOC
• Intro: this should say "this is what this document is and what it is for"
• Rosa will rework the consensus statement.
• Steph will reconsider the protocol for distributing documents
  

I. Membership:
Should move to more formal wording? We have the documents but they are generally geared toward marketing so need to use more formal language for policies.

II. Financial Policies:
We have many in place already. From other groups' example there are some legal/financial policies that need to be in place such as:
-Limitation of Liabiliy of members
-Indemnification
-Conflict of Interest
-Treasury stuff: Capital Account, Profits, Losses, Distributions, Taxes
-Dissolution, Liquidation, and Termination
-General Provisions: Amendment or Modification Dispute Resolution
We need to make sure there are no conflicts between the Policy Handbook and the Operation Agreement that gets sent to the Bank. Susan points out that if we ever had an indemnification problem we wouldn't want to be in a position where policies conflict.
Kai will be working on these.

III. Unit Selection
Discussed the following topic which Kai originally sent via email.

The only thing we used to have was (from scattered places in the "How to get involved" document):
"Associates will select units after Equity Members, by seniority."
"Equity Members participate in the consensus process and can block consensus. They will have first choice in unit selection, by seniority."
"Friends do not participate in decision making but will have next choice in unit selection after Equity Members and Associates, by seniority."

Kelly suggested:
"Unit selection priority will be given to equity members by seniority, with preference given to previous associates and friends".

We decided that we should be even clearer. Here is my proposal:
UNIT SELECTION.
Unit selection will be done on a seniority basis. Members will choose the units they commit to buying in the order in which they became full equity members. To break ties between members that join on the same day, the length of involvement as associates will be used. [To further break ties between members that became associates on the same day, the length of involvement as friends will be used.]

While I was working on this some follow-up issues became clear:
(1) Many groups try to find amicable and optimal solutions of allocating units satisfying everyone's priorities. This could be done by everyone stating their 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices (as long as one would be happy with any of the three) and charging an ad hoc committee with trying to come up with an allocation that satisfies everyone. My question: have we decided to proceed straightaway with a seniority-based one by one selection without first trying something more consensual? The seniority ranking could just be a fall back option.

(2) To make the seniority ranking workable, it needs to be kept track of as the group grows. We should start maintaining a list. It has to contain a seniority ranking of all current equity members and a database of when associates became associates and when friends became friends. Further we need to decide about the ranking of people who have been involved "from the beginning".

(3) Groups that work with Wonderland have all built into the selection procedure a requirement that people who select a unit have to become prequalified for a mortgage within 30 days of unit selection. This may address one of my other outstanding action items.

(4) Some groups allow people to switch from a unit they selected early on to another one that remains as yet unclaimed (suppose the group is not yet a full strength but construction is well on its way). However, they sometimes charge a fee for this (I have seen $250).

We had a discussion about whether to keep Seniority as a way to do unit selection. Most agreed we wanted to leave it in.
Kai points out that we need a database when people joined - Secretary will keep track of that.

IV. Expulsion of Members:
Kai used the wording from Island Cohousing.
Copied from email:

ADMISSION OF MEMBERS.
To become members households need to satify the financial requirements that the group determines from time to time. Further, the admission of the new member household needs to be approved by the group.

EXPULSION OF MEMBERS. [based on Island Cohousing Operating Agreement]
A member household and each of the individual members within the member household may be expelled from the group by a unanimous consensus decision (without resort to a vote) of the other member households. Member households may be expelled for, among other reasons, financial impropriety, embezzlement and/or fraud as determined by such a special meeting.

We need to have something in there that says what the financial logistics are if someone is expelled from the group. Susan questioned the "without resort to a vote" - this was clarified to mean that we would only expel someone with 100% agreement and that we would not fall back to a 2/3 majority vote.

Dave asked if we have any legal right to expel someone from the group once we are actually living in the community - how can we kick out a neighbor that owns their own unit? Kai will research the condo laws. This may be something to ask the lawyer who Cat bought services from.

V. Withdrawal
Copied from email:

WITHDRAWAL AND RETURN OF CONTRIBUTIONS
Member households may resign or withdraw from the group at any time upon written notice to the group. Capital contributions that the withdrawing household has made to the LLC will be repayed at the time of completion of the project (should it succeed). However, it remains within the discretion of the group to repay all or part of the capital contributions of a withdrawing household at any point prior to the completion of the project. Any incentives that were to take the form of a reduced unit price will be forfeited upon withdrawal from the group. Any outstanding loans between the LLC and the withdrawing household shall be repaid according to the terms of such loan.

Dave H asked what happens when people join, withdraw, and then come back. How do we count whether they've been involved long enough? We discussed whether the incentives would be lost if you've put in financial contributions.

VI. Member Handbook
San raised question about putting together a Member Handbook to give to people when they are first getting involved. What kinds of questions should be addressed? Stephanie will create this handbook with input from others.
-Summary of Decisions
-How to get on the YahooGroups Site - San will do this
-Land Search stuff - why are we looking in Framingham, Concord, Acton and why can't we look anywhere else right now? Information about specific sites in Framingham.
-Unit Cost
-How we ended up with Consensus
-Participation of Children in Consensus
-Potlucks, snacks
-What if I don't want to commit until I know where your site is?
-How did we decide to hire Chris?
-Do we have babysitting?
-Who's Who (Laura and Mary, Chris and Kelly, Zev, Nashama, Katie, etc.)
-What is our connection with JP? (Who is JP?)
-Definition of Terms - Glossary
-List of Committees, what they do, who is on them\

11. Time, place, agenda items for next meeting and social event
Review Sliding Scale Document
Marketing Plan
Mortgage Pro-approval
Revisit equity payment levels on September 16th
August Social Event:

12. Review of Meeting & Closing

Contact us! * Email info or webmaster

Last modified: October 3, 2001