Wed 23 Jul 2008
Congratulations to Ted who had his photograph of the Great Oak West node featured as part of The View From Your Window — click on the picture below to see the feature.
Wed 23 Apr 2008
Parenting is a complex, difficult and harshly judged affair. Being a new parent is to be full of self-doubt and anxiety (at least it was for me). I can’t think of a more ringing endorsement for parenting in cohousing than this cheeky article:
My idea of childcare is a large field. At one side is a marquee
serving local ales. This is where the parents gather. On the other
side, somewhere in the distance, the children play. I don’t
bother them and they don’t bother me. I give them as much
freedom as possible.
Maybe cohousing isn’t all that in the specifics, but Great Oak (apart from the darkest and coldest winter stretches) is certainly about as close to that that I’ve seen in my, admittedly limited, parenting years.
Thu 8 Feb 2007
Great Oak just celebrated its 5th anniversary with a fabulous talent show and party!
We had music, dancing, snakes, dragons, grape-hoarding, band-name unveiling, storytelling, stage-shyness, anti-art and much, much more!
Sun 3 Dec 2006
To do the work required to run the community, Great Oak depends on its members and their labor. Tasks range from maintaing the buildings and infrastructure of 37 units, to facilitating meetings to mowing grass and plowing snow. Unlike many cohousing communities, the tasks required to run the Great Oak meal program is a major part of the general work program. Meal jobs represent around 50% of the work hours.
This being Michigan, the seasonal extremes mean that we have different jobs at different times of year. This winter (2006-7), we have a list of 88 different jobs representing 468 hours. Some jobs have multiple positions, and some people opt to perform multiple shifts of certain jobs. Since the list of tasks vary by season and workers like variety and change, we rotate jobs a few times a year. We also have community work days a few times a year to do those tasks that require many people at once and can be done en masse.
A general description of the Great Oak Work system that was posted to the Cohousing-L mailing list has details about our periodic work surveys and how we allocate work based on the preferences expressed on the survey.
As listed in this other recent Cohousing-L message the most desired jobs for this upcoming work season were (the number represents the weighted “average” preference):
and the least desired jobs were:
This system has been in place for almost 3 years, over 600 meals, 2 community meetings per month, many committee meetings and thousands of hours of constructive labor. So far, we haven’t found a better way, but the work committee is always fine tuning and balancing the needs of the community with those of the busy and varied individuals who comprise it. The number of workers has been pretty consistent at around 60 adults, though the load per adult varies, with the goal always to maximize the happiness of all!
Below is the complete list of jobs, sorted by committee. Listed is also the hours per month on average someone doing the job can expect to spend and the number of positions available.
| committee | Job | hours per month | positions |
|---|---|---|---|
| buildings | Buildings Committee convener | 2.00 | 1 |
| buildings | Buildings Maintenance Worker | 2.00 | 3 |
| buildings | Buldings maintenance coordinator | 2.00 | 1 |
| buildings | Counted member (buildings) | 2.00 | 2 |
| buildings | Steering Rep (buildings) | 1.00 | 1 |
| common house | Bike Shed Maintenance | 1.00 | 1 |
| common house | CH Committee convener | 3.00 | 1 |
| common house | CH Decorator | 1.00 | 1 |
| common house | CH Hottub and Hobart (dish-sanitizer) maintainer | 1.00 | 1 |
| common house | CH Night Lockup | 2.00 | 2 |
| common house | CH bathrooms cleaner | 2.00 | 2 |
| common house | CH bathrooms spot cleaner | 1.00 | 1 |
| common house | CH clean-up coordinator | 1.00 | 1 |
| common house | CH dining room cleaner | 2.00 | 2 |
| common house | CH game and media rooms cleaner | 1.00 | 1 |
| common house | CH halls and common areas cleaner | 2.00 | 2 |
| common house | CH inventory/shopper | 4.00 | 1 |
| common house | CH kids room cleaner | 2.00 | 1 |
| common house | CH kitchen cleaner | 2.00 | 2 |
| common house | CH laundry room cleaner | 2.00 | 1 |
| common house | CH maintenance coordinator | 3.00 | 1 |
| common house | CH sitting and guest room cleaner | 1.00 | 1 |
| common house | Counted member (common house) | 2.00 | 2 |
| common house | Kids room coordinator | 2.00 | 1 |
| common house | Steering Rep (common house) | 1.00 | 1 |
| finance and legal | Bookkeeper assistant - Check Writer | 3.00 | 1 |
| finance and legal | Counted member (finance and legal) | 2.00 | 2 |
| finance and legal | Finance and legal committee convener | 2.00 | 1 |
| finance and legal | Insurance point person | 1.00 | 1 |
| finance and legal | Steering Rep (finance and legal) | 1.00 | 1 |
| finance and legal | bookeeper assistant - Member Bookkeeper | 4.00 | 1 |
| finance and legal | bookkeeper assistant - Check Depositor | 2.00 | 1 |
| finance and legal | bookkeeper assistant - Check Logger | 2.00 | 1 |
| finance and legal | general bookkeeper | 6.00 | 1 |
| grounds | Counted member (grounds) | 2.00 | 2 |
| grounds | Heavy-duty shoveller | 3.00 | 3 |
| grounds | Light-duty shoveller | 2.00 | 6 |
| grounds | Snow and Ice Removal Coordinator | 3.00 | 1 |
| grounds | Snow plowers | 4.00 | 4 |
| grounds | Steering Rep (grounds) | 1.00 | 1 |
| grounds | Tractor (Snow plower) | 3.00 | 1 |
| grounds | grounds committee convener | 3.00 | 1 |
| grounds | point person for garbage and recycling | 2.00 | 1 |
| meals | Counted member (meals) | 2.00 | 2 |
| meals | Meal cleaner | 1.50 | 52 |
| meals | Meal cleaner 2 times per month | 1.50 | |
| meals | Meal cleaner 3 times per month | 1.50 | |
| meals | Meal committee convener | 2.00 | 1 |
| meals | Meals Scheduling Person | 4.00 | 1 |
| meals | Meals billing person | 2.50 | 2 |
| meals | Meals billing tech | 1.00 | 1 |
| meals | Meeting Night cleaner | 2.00 | 2 |
| meals | Meeting Night takeout orderer | 1.00 | 2 |
| meals | Steering Rep (meals) | 1.00 | 1 |
| meals | Sunday Meal assistant cook | 2.00 | 8 |
| meals | Sunday Meal assistant cook 2 times per month | 2.00 | |
| meals | Sunday Meal assistant cook 3 times per month | 2.00 | |
| meals | Sunday Meal head cook | 4.00 | 4 |
| meals | Sunday Meal head cook 2 times per month | 4.00 | |
| meals | Weekday Meal assistant cook | 2.00 | 27 |
| meals | Weekday Meal assistant cook 2 times per month | 2.00 | |
| meals | Weekday Meal assistant cook 3 times per month | 2.00 | |
| meals | Weekday Meal head cook | 4.00 | 14 |
| meals | Weekday Meal head cook 2 times per month | 4.00 | |
| meals | Weekday Meal head cook 3 times per month | 4.00 | |
| membership | Counted member (membership) | 2.00 | 2 |
| membership | Fun coordinator | 1.00 | 1 |
| membership | New member handbook | 2.00 | 1 |
| membership | Steering Rep (membership) | 1.00 | 1 |
| membership | child care coordinator for community meetings | 2.00 | 1 |
| membership | community meeting childcare | 1.00 | 6 |
| membership | member database maintenance | 1.00 | 1 |
| membership | membership commitee convener | 3.00 | 1 |
| membership | outreach/contact | 2.00 | 1 |
| membership | outreach/marketing | 2.00 | 1 |
| membership | website hosting and backend maintenance | 2.00 | 1 |
| membership | website maintenance | 2.00 | 1 |
| process | Book of agreements content entry | 1.00 | 1 |
| process | Community Reporter | 2.00 | 1 |
| process | Conflict Resolution committee Co-Convener | 1.00 | 3 |
| process | Counted member (process) | 2.00 | 2 |
| process | Info committee convener | 2.00 | 1 |
| process | LiLaCC Convener | 1.00 | 1 |
| process | Steering Rep (process) | 1.00 | 1 |
| process | agenda planning for community mtgs | 2.00 | 1 |
| process | archivist and bulletin boards | 1.00 | 1 |
| process | facilitate community meeting 2 times per season | 2.00 | 8 |
| process | minute taker for community meeting 2 times per season | 1.00 | 4 |
| process | process committee convener | 2.00 | 1 |
| steering | Steering convener | 2.00 | 1 |
| tech | GO-Net Administrator | 2.00 | 2 |
| tech | GO-Net biller | 1.00 | 1 |
| work | Counted member (work) | 2.00 | 2 |
| work | Steering Rep (work) | 1.00 | 1 |
| work | community work coordinator | 3.00 | 1 |
| work | work allocation tech | 1.00 | 1 |
| work | work survey tech | 1.00 | 1 |
Thu 30 Nov 2006
Although considering and choosing a community and then living the reality of Cohousing in one is likely an enriching, complex and difficult process, it might help you to know some of the resources that can help. Living in Cohousing is a learning process and so constant re-evaluation is the norm! To get an overview of the range of intentional communities around the world, ic.org is invaluable, and in particular, if Cohousing interests you, make sure you know about cohousing.org and the Cohousing-L email list.
Of particular interest might be the article, Is cohousing right for you? on the cohousing.org website and the similar list of questions in a Cohousing-L posting entitled People who are considering cohousing may want to ask themselves some questions. A diverse range of people live in cohousing, some are just starting out, some are old-hands, but everyone is learning how to live in community — even some brave introverts!
No, we’re not all gregarious and extroverted, and there is a huge variety of personalities that live in Cohousing, and that is the richness and challenge.
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