Common House minutes: 2009-02-08

Minutes:

Present: Judith, Rachel, Katie, Becky, Patti, Gabe, Mac

Agenda:
*review and wordsmith rough draft of Child supervision policy
*laundry room updates
*kitchen floor and garbage disposal
*entry way

Supervision Discussion
Becky brought the first rough draft of the policy, in which we set the
minimum age at 9. We had a very lengthy conversation about why we
had shifted away from our original idea of tying it to teen membership
and age 13.

Basically we thought 13 seemed too high, and didn't want to punish
those who choose not to become teen members. But, this new version
went too far the other direction. We spent a lot of time trying to
figure out what the essence was we were trying to capture. One of the
key pieces of the original idea was that it treated being unsupervised
as a privilege and had responsibilities that went along with it (teen
membership includes a work commitment).

Once that was identified, we brainstormed how to get that in this
policy. So, the new age, with parental consent of course, will be
10. AND there will be a work component. CH committee will create a
list of 'junior jobs' (we hope to have a better name soon) that will
be posted in the CH. These jobs will be specific to the CH and be
very short and/or simple (setting or clearing tables, taking out
recycling, etc). 10 year olds and up, whose parents have agreed to
them being unsupervised, will need to do at least 2 jobs a month. The
common house is a shared space, and adding this piece to the policy
will hopefully teach everyone that privileges often come with added
responsibilities.

MONKEYS:
*Becky will take all the feedback/decisions from today's mtg and
revise the policy. Once finished, the committee will go through it
one last time, then we will distribute to the whole community.

*Rachel will work with Patti to create the junior jobs list/chart


Laundry Room Update.
Judith has been working with folks who use the laundry, and here are
some of the ideas. We did not have much time left, and only decided
on a few.
laundry suggestions: need smaller folding table - AGREED. Judith will
get one
*need improved sign up sheets to cover more time, and by machine -
AGREED - Judith will create the sign ups.
Items still to discuss:
*have policy that line drying be done at home or outside - NOT in the
laundry room.
*buying soap in bulk
* no sign ups saturday sunday
*laundry basket with name on it