Steering minutes: 2007-10-07

Minutes:

GO-Steering Minutes
10-7-07

Present: Nancy, Mel, Mac, AmyH
Guest: Robert

Facilitator: Mac
Minutes: AmyH

NOTE: We discussed our concern that we had such low attendance
tonight, recognizing that people have legitimate reasons not to be at
Steering meetings but expressing the hope that Steering reps will
make a concerted effort to find a replacement from their committees,
since Steering only meets once a month and needs input from all
committees on decisions. We’re also concerned that Grounds does not
have a Steering rep and hope the committee can address this as soon
as possible. Since we only meet one hour per month we hope someone
can be persuaded that this is not a great burden.

DECISION: Agreed to allocate up to $1000 from Steering Contingency
to CRC to use at their discretion to engage outside professional help
to address urgent current concerns by several households in the
community around child sexual behavior, possibly including an
educational session for adult community members on this subject, and
efforts to develop a process for the community to follow in the
future when similar sensitive subjects arise. CRC is asked to report
on the status of their efforts at Steering’s next meeting on Sunday,
November 4 at 5 pm in the CH Sitting Room (or by proxy). At that
time we will evaluate whether additional funds are needed, or whether
other suggestions for the Contingency Fund should be funded.

MONKEY: Amy will contact Jack Pyle at TS to let him know that GO-
Steering is interested in his proposal for a tri-community Steering
Committee summit and that we hope he will convene the first meeting
and collect agenda items.

MONKEY: Amy will inform Grounds that Stan Towers is the contact at
Touchstone regarding the renewal of the snowplowing agreement.

MONKEY: Malcolm will ask his friend who lives at Lakestone
Apartments for a contact name and number.

MONKEY: Amy will ask Gail to follow up with Touchstone on our
thoughts regarding Lakestone (Gail initially sent the item to Steering.)

Steering Contingency suggestions:

Help from Annie Zirkel (or another professional) with child sexual
behavior issues and community response to future difficult topics
Robert came to speak about this item. This suggestion comes from the
Living Well with Children Committee, CRC, and other interested
households, to fund help from a mental health consultant, possibly
Annie Zirkel, who might initially just help us figure out what
professional help we need, and community resources exist that we can
draw upon, to address urgent concerns held by several households
around the issue of child sexual behavior.

CRC would make decisions about how to use the funds. There is an
element of urgency, and the intent is to engage in a process that’s
transparent and yet respectful of privacy and confidentiality. There
is a strong feeling that CRC needs professional help from outside,
that this issue is too sensitive to deal internally. There has been a
long history of attempts to address this issue and frustration that
it has not been resolved.

Funds would cover both a listening and a mediation phase, also
bringing in resources to educate the community, and help us figure
out a future process for dealing with sensitive issues in the
future. Some community resources might be free, but we’re not sure.

Everyone Robert has spoken with has felt that given the seriousness
of this issue, the full $2000 should be dedicated to this. He noted
that several community members know and are enthusiastic about Annie
Zirkel, but she might not be the professional selected by CRC. Annie
is only available until the end of January when she will be going out
of town, but then will be back in the future. Annie is a parenting
consultant who teaches classes and workshops in the area.
Coincidentally, she is teaching GO’s Living Well With Children (LWWC)
workshop on adults interacting with children on October 21st, but
that workshop is not specifically about the more sensitive topic at
issue.

Robert pointed out that it is very important that we have a structure
for how we handle issues like this, especially for the benefit of any
new families coming in to the community.

Discussion:

Concern about Annie only being available until end of January.
Response: she’ll be back later; also, she may only be a guide to
helping us find other community resources.

Concerns about confidentiality and privacy. Agreement that this is
critically important.

Do we have to get bids from 3 professionals if the cost exceeds
$500? We feel that this is different from getting something
painted. It is also urgent, and Steering is empowered to deal with
urgent community issues.

DECISION: Agreed to allocate up to $1000 from Steering Contingency
to CRC to use at their discretion to engage outside professional help
to address urgent current concerns by several households in the
community around child sexual behavior, possibly including an
educational session for adult community members on this subject, and
efforts to develop a process for the community to follow in the
future when similar sensitive subjects arise. CRC is asked to report
on the status of their efforts at Steering’s next meeting on Sunday,
November 4 at 5 pm in the CH Sitting Room (or by proxy). At that
time we will evaluate whether additional funds are needed, or whether
other suggestions for the Contingency Fund should be funded.

Discussion about other items on list of ideas for Steering Contingency:

Locks for CH doors
Help with Hope’s piano repair costs (this was suggested by someone
other than Hope, who appreciated her gift to the community)
Slush fund for covering community expenses we can’t pay due to late
association fees, bankruptcy, etc.
Carry $2000 forward to ’08 to reduce Association fees, which would
reduce the labor of crediting and then re-collecting the amount
Possible Grounds items: sidewalk repair, hiring an arborist, lighting
Purchase a power washer ($100-400)

Buildings has already purchased a power washer, and Grounds has
already hired an arborist. We’re assuming that these expenses are
coming out of current operating funds since we didn’t approve the use
of contingency funds in advance of the expenditures.

We’ll return to this list at our next meeting after we hear from CRC.


Tri-community Steering Meetings Proposal

Jack Pyle at Touchstone submitted a proposal for the Steering
Committees of all three cohousing communities to meet in a “summit”
once or twice a year. We wondered what the difference from LiLaCc
would be –it seems that the key word is the “leadership” of each
community. Nancy said that LiLaCc tends to focus more on social
activity. We think this is a good idea to try out. What is the next
step? Let Jack know we like the idea and wait to hear if Sunward is
on board. Maybe Jack could convene the first meeting and collect
agenda items.

MONKEY: Amy will contact Jack Pyle at TS to let him know that GO-
Steering is interested in his proposal for a tri-community Steering
Committee summit and that we hope he will convene the first meeting
and collect agenda items.

Renewing the plowing agreement with Touchstone

Grounds would like to know who to talk to at TS regarding renewing
the snowplowing agreement. Amy found out from Jack Pyle that Stan
Towers is the contact person.

MONKEY: Amy will inform Grounds that Stan Towers is the contact at
Touchstone regarding the renewal of the snowplowing agreement.

Next steps and Committee home for the Hot Tub

Two issues:
Follow up on Erik’s message about next steps for the Hot Tub
Need for a committee “home” for the Hot Tub going forward


Following up on Erik’s message:
Steering is not explicitly empowered to “hold forth”
regarding the Hot Tub, but our common sense is that safety issues
need to be addressed before the Hot Tub becomes operational.
Specifically, we think that a lockable cover and permanent fence need
to be in place (possibly with an exit-only gate), and that steps need
to be taken to safely lock access to the Hot Tub via the Exercise
Room so that children can’t get in without adult supervision.

Committee Home for the Hot Tub
We mostly agreed (and eventually persuaded Nancy from
the already very-busy CH Committee J ) that a permanent Hot Tub
Committee with counted work hours for its members should be created
as a sub-committee of the Common House Committee, similar to CRC
being a sub-committee of Process, and the Workshop Committee/Group
being a sub-Committee/Group under Buildings. This doesn’t mean that
CH will make detailed decisions about the Hot Tub, but they will
provide some general oversight especially as regards the serious
safety issues around the Hot Tub. We strongly hope that the people
currently most engaged in the Hot Tub process will continue to be
involved by serving on the Hot Tub Committee.
As far as we know, nothing budgetary about the Hot Tub
was brought up at last Wednesday’s community meeting.

Meeting with Lakestone Management -- before Halloween
We’ve heard that Touchstone has concerns about Lakestone Apartments
kids and trick-or-treating on Halloween. After much discussion we
concluded:

• We aren’t aware of any problems with trick-or-treating at GO in
past years and are reluctant to create rules when there isn’t a
problem. We checked on line and determined that Scio Township does
not have guidelines about the hours for trick-or-treating as do some
communities.

• However, we think the community needs to have the discussion
launched on e-mail regarding our community’s agreement around
unsupervised visiting children in the CH.

• We also think it’s a good idea to contact the new management at
Lakestone just to open a line of communication in case we ever need
it in future.



MONKEY: Malcolm will ask his friend who lives at Lakestone
Apartments for a contact name and number.

MONKEY: Amy will ask Gail to follow up with Touchstone on our
thoughts regarding Lakestone (Gail initially sent the item to Steering.)

Committee Go-Round

Membership: Budget, LWWC workshop October 21, want to earmark some
money to pool with SW and TS for group outreach projects.

Work: Community Work Days, October 13th & 20th. Sign up!

CH: Checking on Hot Tub process, job description to be written for
night lock-up people, budget, community work day jobs.

Meals: New equipment purchased for kitchen, more attention to picky-
eater food. E-mail traffic about kitchen improvements. New billers
trying to do a more specific budget that anticipates long-term
equipment upgrades.


Next meeting: Sunday, November 4 at 5 pm in the CH Sitting Room


Facilitator: Katie

Minutes: Amy





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://gocoho.org/pipermail/steering-minutes_gocoho.org/attachments/20071008/32a1efd5/attachment-0001.html