This past Thursday, Dec. 22, saw heavy usage at the Great Oak Commmon House. In addition to Judith’s regular Thurdsday Origami Group, a Solstice celebration organized by the Clarks and the (Mary) King family Christmas bake-off, there was an informal Art Show hosted by Sarah Ross.

The show featured paintings by Sarah, Catherine Lankford and Maria Beaugrand all of whom where students in the Fall 2006 session of Painting I at Washtenaw Community College. Our instructor, Nemanja Rosic, as well as friends, family and neighbors of the exhibitors also attended. There were light snacks, including cookies from Mary’s bake-off. A very artsy time was had by all.

To see more pictures from the show, including some close-ups of the paintings go to: Art Show pics…

Our neighboring community, Touchstone Cohousing, was constructed primarily in 2005. From April 26, 2005 until June 2, 2006 we had a webcam setup which took a picture nearly every day at 2pm. This is the compiled video of those photos:

Maybe this post doesn’t address all that, but it does showcase the talent that drives the Great Oak band.

Once upon a time, several years ago, my friend John & I wrote a little songy. We subsequently made a video which laid dormant, more or less, until the technology of video sharing caught up.

Now it’s on YouTube.

Check it out! Share with your friends! Watch it often!

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):

• 42 - meal cleaner once a month
• 27 - weekday meal assistant cook
• 26 - light duty snow shoveller
• 24 - sunday meal assistant cook
• 23 - meal cleaner two times a month
• 23 - Common House sitting and guest room cleaner
• 18 - Common House laundry room cleaner
• 17 - meals billing person
• 16 - weekday meal head cook
• …
• 11 - sunday meal head cook

and the least desired jobs were:

• -88 - community meeting childcare
• -87 - Buildings committee steering rep
• -87 - Buildings committee convener
• -87 - Weekday head cook three times per month
• -87 - Lilacc (Little Lake cohousing committee) committee rep

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.