Editor's Note: Consensus decision-making or some form of collaborative decision-making is used by virtually every cohousing community in the U.S. (and maybe Canada!) Yet, for all its widespread adoption, it is one of the most contentious aspects of living in cohousing. Perhaps it is because it is often misunderstood and misused. In this guest blog by Martie Weatherly of Liberty Village Cohousing in Libertytown, Maryland, she identifies five common areas upon which groups having difficulty stumble. You can download a pdf of this blog post from the MAC website. Martie Weatherly Life Coach and Consensus/Facilitation Trainer
Here are the top five pitfalls to consensus:
Consensus is not good for deciding matters of taste such as choosing colors of paint or for urgent decisions. Delegate those decisions to a team.
Having well-trained facilitators who can keep the discussion on topic is key to having consensus decision-making work. Budget money for facilitation training.
More on blocking in future blog posts. Here is to great consensus decision-making and having it work as well you know it can! [Download a pdf of this blog post.] Martie Weatherly is a personal life coach and a trainer of consensus and facilitation. She has given seminars for Mid Atlantic Cohousing and has consulted with several local cohousing communities on both these topics. One of her biggest passions in life is supporting cohousing communities in having their consensus process and facilitation work seamlessly. In 2016, Martie will be offering two consensus workshops through Mid Atlantic Cohousing. We will be announcing the dates and details via our newsletter and blog. Stay tuned! The Cohousing Toolbox Sometimes you just need TOOLS to help you on your way. Whether you are a newly forming group or a well established community, here's some stuff designed to grease the skids of cohousing. Consensus Resources Seeds for Change -- check out the resources of this UK based organization. According to their website, you are invited to use their materials as long as you do not copyright any of their work. Good Group Tips -- sign up for Craig Freshly's weekly email containing a tip which can surely improve your group dynamics and decision-making. Group Works -- play cards with this card deck created by Group Works which is designed to for bring life to meetings and other gatherings. Do you have a tool to share? Send your thoughts, comments and suggestions to Wednesday, March 2, 2016 7-8:30 p.m. DC Home Buyer Seminar Steps to finding a home you like.
Register here. Presented by GPN Title, Long & Foster, 1st Portfolio Saturday, March 5, 2016, tour Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, DC. Sign up via Washington DC Area Meetup. Saturday, April 16, 2016 the Living Well, Aging Well Summit will be held at the Fairfax County Government Center from 9am-3pm. The mission of the summit is to collaborate, present knowledge and provide a forum for individuals, family members, general community members and industry professionals to explore multiple aspects of living and aging well. The Summit will feature multiple opportunities to learn and grow:
Please stay tuned for more information about how to register! Heathcote Community, a 50-year old intentional community and permaculture demonstration farm, is seeking proposals from families or groups who would like to be Associate Members of Heathcote and rent Heathcote’s farmhouse for a year. Saturday, April 30, 2016 Have you registered for the unique opportunity to promote your community along with others around the country through the National Cohousing Open House Day ? This will be a great way to strengthen the bonds within and between communities while lengthening your waiting lists and filling openings. It will help generate new interest nationwide as well, thus more communities can emerge over time. Sign up using this form. Aging Better Together: May 20-21, 2016 Salt Lake City, UtahDiscover how you can live a powerful purposeful life in cohousing!The conference holds the keys to creating a highly functioning senior friendly cohousing community. You will learn how to get started, meet the people who can help make it happen, and discover best practices from others who have already made the journey. There is something for everyone - those exploring the idea, newly forming groups or existing communities with aging members. Do you have an announcement? Send your info to Ann using the standard 5-Ws: Who, What, Where, When, Why + contact info! Bits When what you need is a rainforest in a desert ... build one in Dubai ... "Dubai has unveiled plans for a luxury hotel with an indoor jungle, the latest in a long line of flamboyant developments taking place in the city.designed by ZAS architects, the rosemont hotel & residences will house a 75,000 square foot (6,968 square meter) indoor rainforest — a feature developers claim to be the world’s first. however, the list of lavish amenities doesn’t end there. spread across two 47-storey towers in dubai’s al thanyah district, the elevated jungle is contained within a super-sized terrarium, complete with a man-made beach and a splash pool that uses recycled water. the complex will also boast an infinity pool with a glass bottom overlooking the gulf, and robotic handlers to transport luggage to guests’ rooms." Designboom Some Day Will We Each Have One of These? Olaf Mooij built his own moveable artist studio from upcycled materials and found objects. It's a carpenter's workshop, laboratory, theatre stage, cinema, transportation vehicle, etc. It's also really tiny. Could this be a solution for an individual living space? All 6.5 billion of us could have our own living space? Be sure to see all the other photos. You'll be surprised to see what this tiny space contains. HUH?
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Terrifying: to fill with terror or alarm; to make greatly afraid. Yup. That dictionary definition pretty well sums up the dread I felt buying my first home. If I only knew then what I know now … If only there had been an internet (dating myself here), if only I had someone to talk to about the process, if only I hadn’t had the mistaken idea that the real estate agent would handle everything … To this day, I remember in great detail the trauma around buying my first home. Just one detail to illustrate: settlement took more than four hours of intensive negotiation via my settlement attorney, the seller’s two real estate agents and the seller — all at the table — as the seller balked at items in the contract that he had to fulfill as required by law. It didn’t go well. Since there’s no time like your first time buying a house … make it a first time to remember as an adventure instead of trauma. What causes all this stress? Safe to say that with the possible exception of having and raising children, buying a house will be the single biggest monetary investment the majority of us make in our lifetime. When you add to that the emotional aspect of that purchase being buying a HOME you can see how the stress can spark. The mechanics of buying a home are the same whether you are choosing to live in cohousing, a typical urban, suburban, rural community development; buying a condo, co-op. single family detached, duplex, quad, or multi-family home; married, single, young or old — everyone marches through the same hoops to get to settlement, get the keys and move-in. While buying in cohousing can offer some relief in reducing the suspicion of being “ripped-off” if you’re not prepared you can be just as surprised in buying a cohousing home as any other house. The process follows these general steps whether using an agent or buying a home For Sale By Owner:
Mostly, the home buying process is a LOT of clerical, administrivia work. If you don’t like details … the process can be a bear. But it is totally doable. In the Cohousing Toolbox below you will find some references to get you started on your way. It is NOT exhaustive. Educate your self by conducting your own research. Don’t overlook taking advantage of any home buying seminars in your area. There is lots of free or low cost workshops available for home buyers. Make your first home buying experience fun to remember! The Cohousing Toolbox Sometimes you just need TOOLS to help you on your way. Whether you are a newly forming group or a well established community, here's some stuff designed to grease the skids of cohousing. Jargon, jargon, jargon. You gotta know the rap to play the game. Don't try to cram the information like you are studying for a test. Give the references below a once over and then use them when you need to understand or define a term of art in buying your home! New York State -- applies to us all! The Motley Fool The Definitive Guide for Homebuyers A Mortgage Glossary HUD Steps for Buying a Home Financing Your Home Affordability Calculator -- how much can you afford? Mortgage Calculator -- what will your mortgage cost? Do you have a tool to share? Send your thoughts, comments and suggestions to Ann. Include contact information. We'll print suggestions in a future newsletter! Saturday, February 20, 2016 come out for the Visitor Day at Heathcote Community! Freeland, Maryland. Wednesday, March 2, 2016 7-8:30 p.m. DC Home Buyer Seminar
Presented by GPN Title, Long & Foster, 1st Portfolio Saturday, March 5, 2016, tour Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, DC. Sign up via Washington DC Area Meetup. Saturday, April 16, 2016 the Living Well, Aging Well Summit will be held at the Fairfax County Government Center from 9am-3pm. The mission of the summit is to collaborate, present knowledge and provide a forum for individuals, family members, general community members and industry professionals to explore multiple aspects of living and aging well. The Summit will feature multiple opportunities to learn and grow:
Please stay tuned for more information about how to register! Heathcote Community, a 50-year old intentional community and permaculture demonstration farm, is seeking proposals from families or groups who would like to be Associate Members of Heathcote and rent Heathcote’s farmhouse for a year. Saturday, April 30, 2016 Have you registered for the unique opportunity to promote your community along with others around the country through the National Cohousing Open House Day ? This will be a great way to strengthen the bonds within and between communities while lengthening your waiting lists and filling openings. It will help generate new interest nationwide as well, thus more communities can emerge over time. Sign up using this form. Aging Better Together: May 20-21, 2016Salt Lake City, UtahDiscover how you can live a powerful purposeful life in cohousing!The conference holds the keys to creating a highly functioning senior friendly cohousing community. You will learn how to get started, meet the people who can help make it happen, and discover best practices from others who have already made the journey. There is something for everyone - those exploring the idea, newly forming groups or existing communities with aging members. Do you have an announcement? Send your info to Ann using the standard 5-Ws: Who, What, Where, When, Why + contact info! BITS More Transforming Furniture Konnekt -- a furniture system designed for the life of the Common House. "Pouf" system includes backrests, tables and framework to add as you like. By Swedese 2016 Leftover wood chips + cement + water = Cool Acoustical Panels. Form Us With Love has created some very sexy acoustical panels for BAUX. Noisy Common Houses are all too common. Common solutions are the standard 12" acoustical tiles seen in many commercial buildings and Tectum which many cohousing communities have used effectively. Nothing wrong with this other than these tiles and panels are ... unattractive. These Baux acoustical treatments are low impact, green, sustainable and they don't look like 12" white squares with little holes in them ... According to the website, the panels are designed for use as architectural wall features while also serving to dampen noise. Very sexy. More inspiring photos. HUH?
So why are you making it so tough for them to find you?
Do you? For the umpteenth time … last night I received a “Press Release” from a group forming an EcoVillage. This is great news! An awesome undertaking! A cause for celebration! No where in the “Press Release” did it contain any contact information. Only at the very end — the very last line — does it direct people to the group’s website. Really? No name, no phone number, no email address …? A project like cohousing which depends so much on social interaction has no way for people to interact? The more you make people jump through hoops to find you the more likely you are to miss the very folks who could be your neighbors — the very ones who could save you from financial ruin by joining you. The media receive hundreds if not thousands of requests for its attention. Making it easy for media folks to contact you should be your number one priority. Making it easy for future neighbors to find you is a also a number one priority. November 3, 2015, I wrote a piece called The Top 5 All-Time Mistakes in Outreach Promotion. (Scroll down to the newsletter for 11/3/15.) In the piece I point out information that groups omit that make it hard for folks to figure out how to get in touch. One of my colleagues wrote to me saying that this piece was awfully basic. She thought what I wrote didn’t give people enough credit for knowing to include contact info. And yet … here we are today, press release in hand with no contact info except a website. Sadly, this is not unusual. Meanwhile, in terms of creating a Press Release … there are rules to follow. Surely common sense dictates that ANY written solicitation contain contact information:
A Press Release contains information laid out in a standard progression: 1. Contact info at the top 2. A Headline that grabs attention 3. A secondary sub-line if needed that expands on the Headline 4. Who, what, where, when, why captured in the Headline, secondary sub line or in the 1st paragraph of the content. 5. Three to five paragraphs of content keeping the Press Release to one page if possible. 6. Include quotable information that the media can use e.g.: “This will be the very first Passive House community built in our area that is also affordable for teachers, librarians, social workers and other middle income folks. The resulting savings on energy costs will help reduce monthly costs for housing putting more money into our local economy.” 7. A very precise Call To Action: attend this event, call for interview, etc. 8. Attached photos or visuals or directions to where media they can download the same e.g. dropbox, website. 9. Always include a short paragraph with descriptive info about who YOU are — make it obvious. 10. Always, always, always end Press Releases with hashtags: ### This indicates to the reader that this is THE END. If you do not have a media maven in your group, if you can’t afford to hire one … then there are a ZILLION websites that can easily show you how to construct a Press Release. My favorite go-to site is HubSpot. Here is just one of their tutorialson creating a Press Release which also includes an example. Just follow the script. Another cool favorite: Fast Company's "How To Write a Press Release That Doesn't Completely Suck." Be smart and create a template or use one of HubSpot’s or another website'sfree templates so that you always have the standard information already created. Then, you’re just filling in the blanks. Here's another head's up: learn the difference between a Media Advisory and a Press Release. They ARE different! Both for groups creating their communities and for established communities in the ongoing task of resales … contact with the prospective buyer is absolutely key. Whether the written information is for a media person, a political person, or a possible new neighbor … help him, help her, help yourselves. Make this easy to do. ### The Cohousing Toolbox Sometimes you just need TOOLS to help you on your way. Whether you are a newly forming group or a well established community, here's some stuff designed to grease the skids of cohousing. No more guilt! Tamara Bowman and Don Crowther show you how you can find FREE legal pictures for your websites, blogs and other media. You got FREE pictures above. Why not some free advice on editing copy? Eddie Shleyner, writing for HubSpot, says: "Editing copy boils down to two key things: recognizing weaknesses and knowing how to fix them. It’s a critical part of the writing process and yet, one that’s all too often overlooked. After all, if you don’t know that there’s an issue to begin with, how can you fix it?" Happily, Shleyner, gives us his "10 Simple Edits That'll Instantly Improve Any Piece of Writing". If you are just starting out in your cohousing adventure writing press releases, web pages, blog posts, etc. you're gonna love this article. And for old timers it's a quick refresher. Be sure to download HubSpot's THE MARKETER'S POCKET GUIDE TO WRITING WELL. It's FREE! Do you have a tool to share? Send your thoughts, comments and suggestions toAnn. Include contact information. We'll print suggestions in a future newsletter! Saturday, February 20, 2016 come out for the Visitor Day at Heathcote Community! Freeland, Maryland. Wednesday, March 2, 2016 7-8:30 p.m. DC Home Buyer Seminar
Register here. Presented by GPN Title, Long & Foster, 1st Portfolio Saturday, March 5, 2016, tour Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, DC. Sign up via Washington DC Area Meetup. Saturday, April 16, 2016 the Living Well, Aging Well Summit will be held at the Fairfax County Government Center from 9am-3pm. The mission of the summit is to collaborate, present knowledge and provide a forum for individuals, family members, general community members and industry professionals to explore multiple aspects of living and aging well. The Summit will feature multiple opportunities to learn and grow:
Please stay tuned for more information about how to register! Heathcote Community, a 50-year old intentional community and permaculture demonstration farm, is seeking proposals from families or groups who would like to be Associate Members of Heathcote and rent Heathcote’s farmhouse for a year. You know how when it's going to snow people go to the store and buy milk, bread and eggs? Are they all making french toast? (quickmeme.com) Find out how cohousers spent the Blizzard of 2016 by visiting this photo array on the Mid Atlantic Cohousing website. We'll be adding photos and text as they become available so check back. With 36" of snow on the ground the folks at Catoctin Creek Village in Lovettsville, Virginia just got out of their front doors three days after the storm finished. They promised pictures ... Saturday, April 30, 2016 Have you registered for the unique opportunity to promote your community along with others around the country through the National Cohousing Open House Day ? This will be a great way to strengthen the bonds within and between communities while lengthening your waiting lists and filling openings. It will help generate new interest nationwide as well, thus more communities can emerge over time. Sign up using this form. Aging Better Together: May 20-21, 2016Salt Lake City, UtahDiscover how you can live a powerful purposeful life in cohousing!The conference holds the keys to creating a highly functioning senior friendly cohousing community. You will learn how to get started, meet the people who can help make it happen, and discover best practices from others who have already made the journey. There is something for everyone - those exploring the idea, newly forming groups or existing communities with aging members. Do you have an announcement? Send your info to Ann using the standard 5-Ws: Who, What, Where, When, Why + contact info! Bits The Murphy Bed goes vertical with the Espace Loggia -- it's a bed that is raised to the ceiling rather than tucked in a wall. It comes in twin and queen sizes. Lots of variety. From Gizmodo: "Just two people are needed to transform the MK1 table in mere seconds. And you don't have to worry about hunting down inserts, sliding panels, or fumbling with some lock that long ago jammed shut. You will probably need to find another spot for TV remotes and empty Doritos bags before you add this to your living room set, though. Oh, and just over $1,300 to pay for it. [Duffy London via Notcot]" Ukrainian designer Julia Kononenko is the creator of this transforming sofa. It's so simple it's a DIY project for any seating space. According to Kononenko: "In our apartments we are always in the confrontation with furniture for the living space. It is so important, that the Interior items possess little space, are multi-functional and small in size. I created a sofa for the living room, that can easily be transformed into a small dining-table with 6 padded stools. In terms of ergonomics it gives maximum comfort and convenience to the user. While transforming the sofa, the seat turns into six padded stools, and the backrest - into a countertop. From one small sofa, we can get a dining-table for 6 persones. Transformation furniture - ideal for limited space." DIY! It's a little WEIRD ... it's a little BIZARRE ... it's a ... Nail-It Finger Saver No more "Owwww!" For cohousers and DIY'ers everywhere. designed by Avihai Shurin Holds the nail in position while keeping your fingers out of harm’s way. Suits most nail sizes. Made of: Plastic HUH? Wanna have a contest? What fun contests about "life in cohousing" would you like to see? Send your suggestions to: Ann Zabaldo. Or you can comment on our blog. Open to all clean & green, natural, organic, cage & steroid-free contests ... You can leave comments about blog postings or all our published work below. Newsletters are posted to the the web site two days after being emailed to subscribers. Or you can send your comments to ANN. She reads them all! While at the website, cruise around earlier blog posts and other parts of the website. Look for FREE downloads!
If you received our newsletter from a third party ... you can subscribe yourself! We don't trade names, we don't spam and we're all around lovely people. Subscribe using the button on the Home Page! The Cohousing Toolbox #2 Many thanks to those who have submitted suggestions for The Cohousing Toolbox. We'll be including suggestions until they run out! Submissions. ![]() Going solar? The savings are dancing like sugar plums in your head. Of course you want to know how much it is going to cost. Answer: Big bucks. But, you are going to MAKE money when you hook up to The Grid. You will start selling your unused electricity back to the electric company. There is another marker to consider. It's the logistics of what it takes to get your brand new energy-saving system actually connected to The Grid. This is called "Interconnection." Some states are abysmal at hooking you up while others are high fives. After investing the GDP of a small country, the last thing you want is for your system to sit idly by in the sun catching rays but not returning any money to your pocket. Which is your state? To help you make the best decision before you invest, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council has just released it's Freeing the Grid scorecard. With this handy tool you can easily see where your state scores. Arizona, North Dakota, Nebraska, Louisiana and a bunch of others -- bad dogs! Hawaii, New Mexico, Ohio and seven other states: High Fives! ![]() Susan Adams of Jubilee Cohousing, a forming group in Floyd, Virgina highly recommends ZenLunatics Mosaic software program for building a website for your cohousing community. Susan cites this tribute from the Cohousing-L email list written by Mary Baker, a resident of Sonora Cohousing in Tucson, Arizona. "I second the use of ZenLunatics’ Mosaic program. I have used Google Docs, Yahoo Groups, various calendar systems and various project management systems and I highly recommend this program—the other solutions would all have to be cobbled together and would be awkward and incomplete. For cohousing, the Mosaic program is easy, intuitive and comprehensive. You can create as many calendars and reminders as you want, make reservations, track charges for dinners and rentals, archive documents, and have both personal and team emails and archives. There’s also a rudimentary discussion forum ability, and a module for a mini-social-media for photos and announcements—it looks like Facebook but is a private module for the coho only." Check out the website! Thank you, Susan, for forwarding this tool for inclusion in The Cohousing Toolbox. Do you have a tool to share? Send to Ann. ![]() freeprintable.net Need fax forms? Flyers? Name tags? Cash sales receipts? Stationery? Flags? Tags? Invitation? For sale? For Rent? If it's something you print ... freeprintable.net has it for FREE! From the website: Put your printer to work! FreePrintable.net provides beautiful FREE printable files that you can customize and print on your inkjet or laser printer. There are 99 sites in the Free Printable network: click one of the links to get started. Printables for Business Printables for Everyone Printables for Home Printables for Kids Non-English Printables Seasonal Printables Print on! Share a tool! Send your thoughts, comments and suggestions to ![]() Interview with Chuck Durrett on Shareable Chuck Durrett, along with his wife Katie McCamant, brought cohousing to the US and Canada with the first edition of their book COHOUSING: A CONTEMPORARY APPROACH TO HOUSING OURSELVES published in 1988. Since then there have been two more edition of the book with more than 150 communities have been completed in the US and Canada. Chuck and Katie's firm has worked on more than 50 of them. Chuck is interviewed by Ann Bergen Miller for Shareable. Sunday, February 7, 2016, 2:00 pm, New Member Social EcoVillage Arlington, Virginia, Boccato Gelato & Espresso, 2719 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22201 Saturday, March 5, 2016, tour Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, DC. Sign up via Washington DC Area Meetup. Saturday, February 20, 2016 come out for the Visitor Day at Heathcote Community! Freeland, Maryland. Heathcote Community, a 50-year old intentional community and permaculture demonstration farm, is seeking proposals from families or groups who would like to be Associate Members of Heathcote and rent Heathcote’s farmhouse for a year. ![]() From the Mid Atlantic Cohousing website: Find out how cohousers spent the Blizzard of 2016 by visiting this photo array on the Mid Atlantic Cohousing website. We'll be adding photos and text as they become available so check back. ![]() From the Cohousing.org website: Saturday, April 30, 2016 Have you registered for the unique opportunity to promote your community along with others around the country through the National Cohousing Open House Day ? This will be a great way to strengthen the bonds within and between communities while lengthening your waiting lists and filling openings. It will help generate new interest nationwide as well, thus more communities can emerge over time. Sign up using this form. ![]() Aging Better Together: May 20-21, 2016Salt Lake City, UtahDiscover how you can live a powerful purposeful life in cohousing!The conference holds the keys to creating a highly functioning senior friendly cohousing community. You will learn how to get started, meet the people who can help make it happen, and discover best practices from others who have already made the journey. There is something for everyone - those exploring the idea, newly forming groups or existing communities with aging members. Do you have an announcement? Send your 5-Ws: Who, What, Where, When, Why + contact info! BITS ![]() Passive Haus Wikipedia defines the term passive house (Passivhaus in German) as refering "... to a rigorous, voluntary standard for energy efficiency in a building, reducing its ecological footprint. It results in ultra-low energy buildings that require little energy for space heating or cooling." This article looks at how the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency by including Passive Haus benchmarks in Low Income Housing Tax Credit application not only generated energy efficient housing but more of it. Developers saw incorporating the Passive Haus standard as a way to gain a little edge in the awarding of contracts for building affordable housing. Now the housing is not only affordable on the front end ... it's affordable on the back end by saving owners money in energy outlays. According to the article in Planetizen: "The resulting energy cost savings to the tenants could help break the cycles of poverty that cause people to need affordable housing in the first place." ![]() superkul.ca + HOUSE From the website: Designed for a client with environmental (chemical) sensitivities, +HOUSE is a manifestation of a sustainable and healthy approach to building that does not sacrifice design.+ HOUSE is embedded with a wealth of complex, health sensitive materials and methods. Built of inert cementitious blocks that inhibit the growth of fungi and molds, the walls are finished with a natural clay plaster that requires no paint finish. A soy-based sealer was used for the concrete floors and counters, and untreated silk and hemp fabric was used for the curtains. The client was equally interested in environmentally responsible design. Achieving a healthy house for both client and environment meant extensive research into a wide range of products and locally produced materials suited to the climate. A green roof, heat-mirror triple glazing, solar shading, passive ventilation and daylighting, and a geothermal system are just some of the features of this LEED Gold-targeted project. ![]() Slalom House It's bird! It's a plane! It's a ski run! Not built yet but it's oh so wonderfully weird every municipality should have one -- or more --complexes that combine housing and ... skiing! Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) started this craze with its plans to build a trash incinerator with a chair lift to allow people to ski down one side of the building. But why limit skiing to industrial buildings when you can ski right outside your front door? It will be located in the Kazakh capital city of Astana. If you like weird, if you like bizarre then you will like Astana and you will understand why skiing and housing go together. HUH?
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AuthorAnn Zabaldo is a passionate promoter of cohousing. She was on the develoment team for Eastern Village in Silver Spring, MD and Takoma Village in Washington, DC where she lives. She serves on the Board for MAC. Archives
February 2017
See cool blog for Emerson Commons.
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