Post by Rebecca Rollins on Nov 27, 2011 21:46:41 GMT -6
Cohousing Meeting Minutes 11/27/11
Linda Ray facilitated since Jack didn’t show up. Rebecca took minutes. Katherine was time keeper.
Committee reports:
Mission statement
We looked at the revised version of the mission statement that Gwen edited (and also the original). The original document was a page in length, really too long for a mission statement, so Gwen had summarized it in a paragraph at the top that she labeled the mission statement. The discussion focused mostly on that paragraph. The group was still not happy with it. There were questions about how specific a mission statement for an umbrella group should be. Karen pointed out where it mentioned “growing organic foods” and said “what if our group decides it doesn’t want to grow organic foods? Someone suggested leaving out the middle sentence where most of the specific descriptors were found. But Gwen and Katherine said a good mission statement needs to mention specific principles, or it’s not really a mission statement. It was decided to send the mission statement back to the committee for more work. Karen said she would talk to the committee, and other people were recommended to contact the committee with their concerns as well.
Site committee
Diana Sullivan passed out some handouts, which we discussed. One of them was labeled “Urban Sites” and lists the approximate locations of all the urban sites (about 12) that we are looking at. There was also a handout labeled “Urban Site Criteria”, i.e. the criteria by which the committee is selecting sites. The committee (Diana, Katherine and others) welcomes feedback on both subjects. The committee also put out a plea for everyone involved in cohousing to keep your eyes and ears open for possible sites. Katherine said if we don’t find a site soon, she’s worried we’ll “lose momentum”. Other people on the committee said they thought the committee was working hard and doing an excellent job. Diana said she hoped that when they sent out letters all the property owners in the 12th South area, that that would generate a lot of progress. But we aren’t looking only in that area.
Criteria: Gwen said she was concerned that if we bought an acre or less of property that we wouldn’t be able to have a garden. Diana said that Chuck said that it would be possible. Katherine said would should include school zoning information in our site criteria. We don’t have any children now, but we might later.
Marketing
Presented by Linda Ray.
The marketing committee (more specifically Linda Ray) continues to send out newsletters, and the website is coming along.
Membership
Presented by Linda Ray.
We did one outreach meeting, last weekend, which 3 or 4 new people attended. It went well. The committee has not yet scheduled another.
Someone expressed concern that Linda Ray might burn out from being the chair of too many different committees. Linda Ray said that would be nice to have help, that she didn’t really want to be in charge of lots of committees, but she was okay for the moment. But help was always welcomed.
Process committee
Karen was present from the Process committee, and also Linda Ray. Nobody present knew what the purpose of the Process committee was supposed to be, so the group decided to dissolve the Process committee for the time being.
Finance
No one was present from the finance committee. Linda Ray said our finances hadn’t changed much recently. However, she said we need new post-it easels, and a process for buying them. This was sent to committee.
Diana thought it would be good to know who is committed to the urban site, and what their financial position is. That would give us some sort of ball park figure for how much money we can spend on purchasing a site. This issue was sent back to committee to get recommendations for a process for implementing this.
An issue that was brought up at the last meeting:
Rebecca stated she felt meetings were rather rushed and recommended they be extended to an hour and a half. There was some discussion over whether extending the meeting time would result in making meetings feel less rushed, but overall it was felt to be a good idea. We could devote 15 minutes instead of 10 minutes to more topics. Katherine said she had a concern that she didn’t want meetings to be over and hour and a half. Everybody else agreed. It was decided we would meet for an hour and twenty minutes, with an extra 10 minutes built-in for overruns (if we need to extend the discussion period for an issue.)
Meeting evaluation
Several people stated that if would be nice if more business got done on pro-boards, but everybody confessed they were guilty of not using it. Gwen said she didn’t want to use it because she didn’t like their privacy agreement, which basically states that the company has the right to look at any of your stuff any time they want. Everybody agreed it would be really nice to have a members-only section of the website that we could use instead of pro-boards.
Diana said to remember that we were here to create community, and in the spirit of that, several of us decided to go out for coffee, and went to Portland Brew.
Linda Ray facilitated since Jack didn’t show up. Rebecca took minutes. Katherine was time keeper.
Committee reports:
Mission statement
We looked at the revised version of the mission statement that Gwen edited (and also the original). The original document was a page in length, really too long for a mission statement, so Gwen had summarized it in a paragraph at the top that she labeled the mission statement. The discussion focused mostly on that paragraph. The group was still not happy with it. There were questions about how specific a mission statement for an umbrella group should be. Karen pointed out where it mentioned “growing organic foods” and said “what if our group decides it doesn’t want to grow organic foods? Someone suggested leaving out the middle sentence where most of the specific descriptors were found. But Gwen and Katherine said a good mission statement needs to mention specific principles, or it’s not really a mission statement. It was decided to send the mission statement back to the committee for more work. Karen said she would talk to the committee, and other people were recommended to contact the committee with their concerns as well.
Site committee
Diana Sullivan passed out some handouts, which we discussed. One of them was labeled “Urban Sites” and lists the approximate locations of all the urban sites (about 12) that we are looking at. There was also a handout labeled “Urban Site Criteria”, i.e. the criteria by which the committee is selecting sites. The committee (Diana, Katherine and others) welcomes feedback on both subjects. The committee also put out a plea for everyone involved in cohousing to keep your eyes and ears open for possible sites. Katherine said if we don’t find a site soon, she’s worried we’ll “lose momentum”. Other people on the committee said they thought the committee was working hard and doing an excellent job. Diana said she hoped that when they sent out letters all the property owners in the 12th South area, that that would generate a lot of progress. But we aren’t looking only in that area.
Criteria: Gwen said she was concerned that if we bought an acre or less of property that we wouldn’t be able to have a garden. Diana said that Chuck said that it would be possible. Katherine said would should include school zoning information in our site criteria. We don’t have any children now, but we might later.
Marketing
Presented by Linda Ray.
The marketing committee (more specifically Linda Ray) continues to send out newsletters, and the website is coming along.
Membership
Presented by Linda Ray.
We did one outreach meeting, last weekend, which 3 or 4 new people attended. It went well. The committee has not yet scheduled another.
Someone expressed concern that Linda Ray might burn out from being the chair of too many different committees. Linda Ray said that would be nice to have help, that she didn’t really want to be in charge of lots of committees, but she was okay for the moment. But help was always welcomed.
Process committee
Karen was present from the Process committee, and also Linda Ray. Nobody present knew what the purpose of the Process committee was supposed to be, so the group decided to dissolve the Process committee for the time being.
Finance
No one was present from the finance committee. Linda Ray said our finances hadn’t changed much recently. However, she said we need new post-it easels, and a process for buying them. This was sent to committee.
Diana thought it would be good to know who is committed to the urban site, and what their financial position is. That would give us some sort of ball park figure for how much money we can spend on purchasing a site. This issue was sent back to committee to get recommendations for a process for implementing this.
An issue that was brought up at the last meeting:
Rebecca stated she felt meetings were rather rushed and recommended they be extended to an hour and a half. There was some discussion over whether extending the meeting time would result in making meetings feel less rushed, but overall it was felt to be a good idea. We could devote 15 minutes instead of 10 minutes to more topics. Katherine said she had a concern that she didn’t want meetings to be over and hour and a half. Everybody else agreed. It was decided we would meet for an hour and twenty minutes, with an extra 10 minutes built-in for overruns (if we need to extend the discussion period for an issue.)
Meeting evaluation
Several people stated that if would be nice if more business got done on pro-boards, but everybody confessed they were guilty of not using it. Gwen said she didn’t want to use it because she didn’t like their privacy agreement, which basically states that the company has the right to look at any of your stuff any time they want. Everybody agreed it would be really nice to have a members-only section of the website that we could use instead of pro-boards.
Diana said to remember that we were here to create community, and in the spirit of that, several of us decided to go out for coffee, and went to Portland Brew.
Attachments:
