Minutes of Mosaic Commons General Meeting
May 19, 2002, 3:30-6:30pm

Decisions:

Action Items:

Discussion:

1. Opening activity: What knowledge do you have that you’d like to pass on to others?
2. Review of Colored Cards and Ground Rules. Rosa reviewed cards and guidelines.
3. Announcements and approval of agenda.

The agenda was approved with change: to flip flop Items 10 and 11 because several people are leaving early.

4. Review and approve minutes from previous meeting.

Steph--The May 5 minutes should state that the Finance Team will meet with prospective equity members prior to the meeting in which the group will vote on their membership.

Catya would like people to give her updated information from their teams before general meetings

5. Retreat reflections (go-around)

Judy reminded people to be brief with their comments.

Marty--Appreciated how much people stepped in to help with all the kids; site was not childproof; view was great.

Greg—Had trouble sleeping due to the noise; loved the location and lake. Can we use the cabins next time to get more privacy? Had a great time.

Jim—Spent a lot of time running after Brendan; noise was a problem; some scheduled activities would be helpful; Abby learned that the cabins were $300/weekend.

Rosa—Felt a bit grumpy leading up to retreat; felt bad b/c the place was not sound-insulated; affordable and beautiful; works well in many other ways.

Kai—Had a great time -- it reminded him of how great it will be to live with everyone. We will need a balance between having scheduled activities for new people and hang-out time for old timers.

San—Bugged by litter under mattress. Bringing bedding for a family of 4 was a lot of extra work.

Rick—Liked it, would do it again, was sick all weekend.

Dwight—Liked the spontenaity of not having scheduled activities; liked hanging out with kids, liked the fire and performance night.

Steph—Loved her "real" bed; appreciated men making Mother’s Day brunch.

Felt a separation between new and old people, but wasn’t sure how to make it better.

Sara—Great time; would prefer to have a more local site next time esp. for folks who would like to just go for the day.

Roxanne—Great time hanging out with future neighbors; noise was an issue.

Lisa—Had a great time socializing; loved the lake.

Rosa suggested that we have 2 people who are designated retreat planners in the future because the growing size of the group makes planning too much for 1 person; she would like the retreat to be away from this area geographically so it feels like a get-away.

6. 40B Check in: What we know, what we don’t

Kim—We don’t know exactly how the lottery system works, and it varies from town to town. The main issue for us is in the event of a membership lottery that is open to the public at large; how do we recruit people who will want to participate in building a community with us?

Ben—Would like to know if it’s possible that people from MC would not get selected in the event of a lottery. Concerned about how members and people at large will be categorized and hence selected for membership in the community. Kim reiterated that it varies from county to county.

Orange card to Kim for all of her work on the 40B research!

Roxanne--Shared information on an upcoming 40B seminar to be held in Boston on Wednesday, June 5^th from 7:30-10 am. Kai suggests we limit it to 2 people; Kim and Rosa volunteer. Kim will RSVP by May 29^th to the organizer of the seminar.

7. Pro Active Land/Site Search

John—Feels we need to use Chris’s time more efficiently and he would like us to re-consider our land search methodology. Wants to form a small land-search team dedicated to finding potential sites. Would like to open this up for discussion and would like to know who would like to volunteer.

Steph—With process observation: Given our emotional investment in this issue, we need to keep in mind that the people spear-heading this work may become "lightning rods" within the group; we need to be sensitive to them during the process and be careful not to scapegoat them in the event that things don’t go well.

Ben—Knows the search site area well and would like to volunteer on the land search team.

Dwight—Believes this group should be small and the details of potential sites should be kept to the land search team; echos Stephs comments about the lightning rod issue; concerned about non-associate members joining this particular team given the confidentiality issue.

Ben--Would like to become an associate member, but doesn’t feel he’s done enough action items; group says this team would count as enough work for him to become an associate immediately.

Rosa—Will add 5 minutes to agenda later to vote on Ben’s membership.

Rick—Wants to know why we don’t know what Chris does?

John—Is not completely satisfied with Chris’s level of communication with him.

Jim—Do we have a contract with Chris?

Dwight—Notes that our contract with CoHousing Resources is vague and ambiguous.

Rosa—Is not comfortable about the direction of conversation; notes that if we are unhappy with our contract we need to discuss it elsewhere.

Lisa—Thought CSH’s role was to be doing things we were not able to do. So how is it that we can just jump into that role and those responsibilities?

John—We are in a much more educated place than we were a few months ago.

Steph—We’re not proposing that we not hire him, so much as we want to consider how we can do more to feed him information; we could do more leg work and use him more as an information resource.

Greg—Thinks John’s suggestion is well thought out. Feels he has a lot to offer to this team. Would like to find a student who we could hire to help us with some of the land search research.

Jim—Is not sure what he can do since he’s not an associate, but would like to help.

Roxanne—Would like to do research (town records, etc) on this team, but not comfortable knocking on doors.

Marty—Has daytime flexibility and could do some leg work for the land-site task force if someone could give her specific tasks.

Greg—Will the people who are already on land-site continue on the land-site task force? In essence, we are saying we need to redefine the function of the land-site committee.

Rosa—It sounds to me like we are asking people to join the land-site team in a very focused manner in order to carry out the leg work we would like to take over from CSH.

John—Our first task will be to determine what needs to be done and then we will be able to reach out more to people who are willing to take on specific tasks.

Steph—Would like to know what people think about posting the meeting notes from our last meeting with CSH because she feels like there are people here who would like to participate more in this discussion that can’t because they haven’t seen the minutes. (Group says that would be okay and Steph passes minutes around).

Kai—Wonders if we can add some of the new people to the land-site list? Proposes that we add Jim and Marty to the list. Although they are not associate members, does not believe they propose a threat to our confidentiality.

John—Asks that all land-site members read Chapter 5 in CSH’s book.ar Greg—Karen felt like Maynard is as developed as it can get and doesn’t feel that the town would welcome our group. Rosa and San suggest we move this discussion to the Land-Site Cmte report later in the meeting.

8. Action Items

Ben—Has compiled the group’s ideas for a general term for all people involved in MC and will report at the next meeting.

Break: 10 minutes.

9. Process Check-in

Steph--Reports no major process concerns.

Sara--Excited about how we get through business and stay on topic.

Ben—Likes the way Judy and Rosa are working together.

9.5. Ben becomes an associate member!

10. Hot Topics: Discussion of Group Solicitation Guidelines (see document)

San—Hot Topics Background: Other groups have found it useful to begin discussing hot topics prior to moving in together in order to help people select a group that is a good fit for them, and to clarify how people feel about sensitive issues ahead of time with the intention of heading-off conflicts pro-actively.

Judy—It looks like a common feature is that no one wants to have people in their face.

Dwight--There are constitutional issues here. Individuals can decide if they want solicitation, but we need to consult somebody to find out the extent to which a group can make such a decision.

Rosa—Believes we don’t need an explicit policy for our community.

Dwight’s remarks had to do with outside solicitation.

Marty—Bulletin board is not a very efficient communication tool. I would like to see a table in a corner of the dining hall where people could provide info to interested people without being intrusive to others.

Kim—Part of the experience for kids, say in Girl Scouts, is the sell; that’s part of what they’re learning. Do we want to eliminate that?

Ben—I believe a lot of these issues come down to getting to know each other.

John—What if people signed a form letting people know that they don’t mind being visited by Girl Scouts, etc?

Marty—I think kids in coho are going to be getting a lot of practice interacting with adults and won’t necessarily need the experience of selling door to door to get that.

Rosa—There are commercial things, but there are also things like Judy’s play that folks would want to know about. Is an email message system a good idea?

Ben—I want to know about things like Judy’s play, but I really don’t want any more spam.

Lisa—We could use prefixes on our email that would let people know they’re an announcement.

Sara—There’s an important difference between a solicitation and an announcement.

Marty—I’m a little uncomfortable with posting signs that say, "No don’t" at the entrance to a community because it may create an unwelcoming or negative tone.

Dwight—I propose that we take what we have discussed and draft a guideline on solicitation.

Christie—I will take that. To clarify, what I mostly heard was around within group solicitation, not outside solicitation; my draft will reflect this.

San—We need to make an action item to research Dwight’s concerns about making a policy around outside solitiation.

11. Committee Reports

Coordinating

San—It would be helpful if people would mark their vacations on the yahoo groups calendar.

Marketing

Judy—Marketing doesn't agree with her and she would like someone else to step in on this team.

Did Virginia volunteer to work on this team?

Conflict Resolution

John—We’ve had a couple meetings and are in the process of putting together a report that we would like to bring to an upcoming meeting. We would like to use an approach that will allow us to channelize conflicts back into the group in the form of good energy.

Facilitation

Rosa—We’ve been meeting regulary and it seems to going well. We’re always open to hearing people’s comments about what they like and don’t like, etc.

Land Site

Rosa—Greg wanted us to discuss Karen’s concerns about the prospects of finding land in Maynard.

Kim—I had a positive sense of possibilities for land in Maynard from the conservation team. I am looking at 2 pieces of land, with the possibility of 4 more coming up for sale. The people I’ve talked to knew what cohousing was.

Ben—Maynard has two different populations which may create two very different responses to cohousing.

San—I think the Maynard Conservation Cmte has a meeting this Tuesday night; is it possible for one of us to attend?

Ben—I can probably go.

Kai—We should be clear that whoever goes should not share information about our group, but just collect information.

Finance

Kai—We had a cash call and a second cash call for $6000.00 that was not met. We do not have the money right now for paying CR for June and the retreat expenses. We are short $1,500.00. We can have another call. The finance team is getting frustrated with people’s slow rates of response; we need people to shorten their response times.

Roxanne—If we don’t come up with the money, we could contract with CSH 3 days instead of 5 next month.

Steph—I agree.

Kim—Have we considered asking CSH for a free month since our land-search has gone on for so long and the group is tapped out of money?

Dwight—There is no evidence that the group is tapped out and I want to avoid using that kind of terminology to describe the group’s finances.

Rosa—I would support re-doing a cash call because it seems like a really big discussion to re-think our spending.

John—I support rethinking our spending.

Judy—It wouldn’t hurt asking CSH if he would be flexible with us next month without ruling out our future ability to rethink our spending.

Marty—I wonder if we’re getting our money’s worth from CSH and feel we need to rethink that.

Steph and Dwight—Propose that we have a third call, and ask that people respond as soon as possible. If that call is not met, I propose that Cat ask CSH to consider contracting with us for 3 instead of 5 days next month.

John—I propose a different solution: If the cash call is not met, I think we should have an emergency meeting to have the spending discussion.

Sara—I’m feeling that would be rushed; I wouldn’t be able to make that meeting. I feel we should follow the current procedure at the moment.

Rosa—I propose we answer Dwight’s proposal. To restate, we will have a 3^rd cash call, and if that is not met, we will have Cat talk to CSH about us getting a break. We can also have a discussion at some point in the future about our relationship with Cohousing Resources.

Sara—Now that we know what our expenses are, I wonder if we truly need the entire $6000.00. Finance team to discuss this.

Dwight—Our contract is with Cohousing Resources which is bigger than just CSH; our language should reflect that.

Kai—I have been working on producing an operating agreement (OA). I am specifically working on how we will define the relationship between this document and the already-existing policies and procedures of the group.

Dwight—The tax accountant needs to have the OA in order to understand what the obligations are between and among the members of the group.

Future Meetings:

June 2, 16

July 7, 21

Intro meetings:

June 16^th (?)

July 21^st (Judy will assist Catya; Back-up: Kim)

Socials:

June 14^th Puzzle and collage project (contact San)

June 30^th Drumlin Farm

San—Feels our discussion about our contract with CR needs to happen before the next general meeting because several Equity members will not be here.

Rosa--Feels that that discussion doesn’t happen before the next meeting.

Kim—What about a dinner discussion? (with wine)

Kim—I feel the discussion should happen soon, but it’s not urgent.

John—We need to have the discussion before we are backed into a corner and we will be forced to do something we don’t want to do.

Kim—Volunteered to coordinate that meeting among members and associates.

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Last modified: June 19, 2002