Steering minutes: 2007-11-04

Minutes:

GO- Steering Committee Minutes11/4/07
Facilitator: Katie
Minutes: AmyH

Present: Mel, Gail, Katie, Nancy, AmyH, Elph, Malcolm, Rod
Guests: Catherine

Report from CRC ad hoc committee (Catherine)

CRC ad hoc committee includes Jay, Becky, Catherine and Patti. At
its last meeting, Steering allocated up to $1000 from the Steering
Contingency fund to be used to bring in outside expertise if CRC
decides it is appropriate to help resolve an issue involving several
households for whom the communication pathway has failed.

The CRC group has met with or checked in with the parties who are
most involved. Two households would like to participate in mediation.
Three other households are not interested in or willing to meet with
a mediator. Mediation is not possible unless everyone is willing to
participate. However, at least one of the households reports feeling
better about the situation because they feel they have been heard by
CRC and by Steering.

As a next step, the CRC group plans to meet with Annie Zirkel to
request advice on moving forward.
There is a tentative meeting date set for this week.

The group discussed the overarching issues, apart from the recent
specific instance, which are: What happens when the communication
pathway breaks down? What happens when someone in the community
behaves in a way that is outside acceptable behavior? Where are the
boundaries when an outside facilitator is brought in? Where is the
line between community and individual responsibility? Steering
received feedback from community members raising the latter question
in particular. After discussion, Catherine said she would keep us
informed as the CRC group takes the next step(s).

Balance of Contingency Funds (discussion)

The CRC group may end up spending only a small fraction of the $1000
that was allocated, but we won’t know for a while how this plays
out. Meanwhile, there is another $1000 available. We reviewed the
suggestions that had previously been put forward:

• Automated locks for CH doors: the group felt that this was an
expensive, high tech solution to a problem that may not need a tech
solution. We are interested to know how things are going with the
new multi-person lock-up crew. We have the impression that things
are better.



• Help with Hope’s piano repair costs (this was suggested by someone
who appreciated Hope’s gift to the community). We felt that this was
a very thoughtful idea, but not the kind of community-wide item for
which contingency funds would typically be used.



• Slush fund for covering community expenses we can’t pay due to late
association fees, bankruptcy, etc. Some discomfort with the term
“slush fund,” which sounded illegal to one person. No strong
interest in this idea.



• Carry $2000 forward to ’08 to reduce Association fees, which would
reduce the labor of crediting and then re-collecting the amount.
There was a sense that the labor involved was not significant, since
there will be other line items that are credited back to the
community and then re-collected. This is a routine process.



• Possible Grounds items: sidewalk repair, hiring an arborist,
lighting. Rod recommended taking these off the list. Sidewalk
repair will be a significant expenditure, but can come out of LCTRF.
The arborist should be coming any time now and will be paid out of
current year Grounds funds. Steering gave money last year for
lighting, and that still hasn’t been spent.



None of these items were very compelling to the group, and we noted
that the items mostly relate to regular committee budgets anyway. A
contingency fund should be for unexpected things that come up outside
the budget. You could argue that we should expect the funds to be
rebated, unless there is an emergency or something unusual. We’ll
wait to see if anything else comes up before the end of the year,
otherwise the funds will be rebated.



Prioritize Steering Summit list

Jack Pyle at Touchstone proposed a “summit” of steering committees
from the three cohousing communities, and we agreed to that at our
last meeting. Now Jack has sent us a list of possible agenda items
to prioritize. Katie took a stab at this and everyone liked her
thinking.

Economies of scale for such things as insurance, lighting,
maintenance, etc.
Getting public transportation
Outdoor pets
Ride share
Parkland Plaza Association
Shared child care for meetings
Joint list of recommended vendors and other resources
Share problem-solving experiences
Attendance at local government meetings
Shared mediation/conflict resolution
Fun things
Farmers market
Traffic safety with business and govt. officials
Cohousing talents/resources
Familiarization with the three community’s pathways
Record keeping of policy decisions and easy retrieval

MONKEY: Amy to send the prioritized list to Jack.

Committee Go-Round

F&L: The list of past due association fees had recently improved,
but is now getting bad again. The balance of funds is not so much
the problem with this as when people refinance, the finance company
asks how many units are more than 30 days past due, and a long list
is not a good thing.

Membership: Surprising number of people interested in cohousing
lately! (2). People have been visiting. Veering back towards
having paid childcare, because we can’t find people to do it.

Work: Getting ready for next allocation process. Committees need to
get their jobs for the winter season in to Lisa by Thanksgiving.

Grounds: Still working on same stuff, TS will do snow removal again
with us and pay for it.

CH: Still discussing raising fees for Guest Room. Some negativity
about that. Sarah has been bombarded with suggestions for CH
improvements, and has proposed a new process for these suggestions.

Buildings: Need to have a fire suppression inspection soon.
Basement leak issues. Gutters have been put on CH by the laundry and
media rooms. May add rainbarrels to gather water. Nothing going on
with siding this year.

Process: Working on Nov. 10 training day and alternative meeting for
November 3, which is a lead up to it. Also exploring a new way of
handling work credit for facilitators.

Meals: Met but no minutes have come out and Mel wasn’t able to
attend. Kathy B took over as biller and has balanced the checkbook.
The Meals program is solvent.

Next meeting

Next meeting on December 2 at 5 pm at Katie’s house as the CH has
been reserved for a private party. Gail will facilitate and Elph
will take minutes.






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