a community living la vida open space
Alan Stewart
alanmstewart at gmail.com
Sat May 27 18:02:01 PDT 2006
Further to Tree Fitzpatrick's inspiring story ...
In the early 90s I was part of a group which was planning to co-create the Halifax Ecocity, a community of about a thousand people living in the middle of the city of Adelaide in South Australia. http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/permaculture/1998-June/005381.html
(This grand Ecocity enterprise did not materialise, mainly, in my understanding through lack of financial resources in the face of competition for the site from 'business as usual' developers).
Several friends and I were responsible for the concept and design of a co-housing component which was to be in a 5 storey apartment block.
Here is story which greatly influenced me and others about the meaning of community living in this manner. The background is that Robert Gilman, founder and editor of 'In Context' magazine at the time, came to Adelaide in the mid 90s with his 13 year old daughter. They gave presentations to an audience of people interested in intentional community living. Robert spoke on the creation, operation and design of the cohousing community on Bainbridge Island near to Seattle, into which he and his family had moved after the construction was completed.
Robert's daughter spoke of her experience of living in this complex. She said that there were about 90 residents, 50 adults and 40 children. "Among ourselves we have solved a problem which is widespread throughout North America: excessive watching of TV. We have so much fun playing together that we do not have time for TV!"
To a question from the audience, "What happens if a family approaches your community with a request to join and says one of their children has a severe behavioural problem?"she responded "We don't accept people like that, they accept us."
I note that Chris Corrigan wrote to Florian Fischer on 17 December 2003 Re: City council and civil conversation
I just forwarded this post of yours to Robert Gilman, a local (Langley,
WA, US) friend and (hopefully) soon-to-be city council member who is
interested in doing community-wide open space as part of an ongoing
civil infrastructure. I am helping him to develop a prototype online
environment to help support the process with a design team of about 40
citizens who want to help facilitate a community vision of the future of
our town.
And from a google search that Robert Gilman is a now a member of the Langley City Council.
Where may these threads be leading?
With love
Alan
Hong Kong
I----- Original Message -----
From: Tree Fitzpatrick
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2006 5:43 AM
Subject: Re: a community living la vida open space
Oh, yeah, it's still there. It's one of the oldest co-housing communities in North America, maybe twenty years now? They welcome visitors, like you could drop by for one of their suppers for a small amount of money (cost of food). Call ahead. Google them to find a phone number.
On 5/27/06, Frank Deitle <commoikos at gmail.com> wrote:
Tree,
Thank you for the inspiring story and wow, I'm actually about a half
an hour away from Amherst, MA right now. Is Pioneer Valley Coho still
around?
Peace,
Frank Deitle
On 5/27/06, Tree Fitzpatrick < therese.fitzpatrick at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 5/27/06, Frank Deitle <commoikos at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'd like to hear more about the Spirited Work Community and open space
> > intentional communities in general. Ever since I discovered OST (or
> > did it discover me?) this year from the wonderful Lisa Heft, I have
> > fantasized about what a large-scale residential intentional
> > community/ecovillage/sustainable human settlement would
> be like if it
> > was visioned, organized, planned, executed, maintained, and governed
> > in Open Space. What kind of crazy, wonderful creature would that
> > become? What kind culture would emerge out of that? Are other people
> > out there thinking about this sort of thing? How do you see it
> > unfolding/coming about?
>
> I was a steward and convenor of Spirited Work for a few years, Frank, and I
> could tell you more about it sometime but my first response to your inquiry
> is to tell you about a co-housing community I lived in for two years in
> graduate school.
>
> I rented an apartment in Pioneer Valley Co-Housing in Amherst,
> Massachusetts for two years. It was a little different being a renter than
> being an owner, mostly because folks assumed (correctly) that I was not
> permanently committed to the community the way an owner was committed.
>
> The folks at Pioneer Valley Coho deeply understood concensus. And, in my
> humble opinion, they also deeply understood open space. Here is why I say
> that.
>
> When I joined the community, everyone was assigned to a work team. There
> was a series of rotating weekly assignments and each team took a turn at
> each rotation. I think it took about four weeks for one team to work
> through all the different assignments. The assignments were evenly
> apportioned when I first moved in. Everyone took a turn cleaning the main
> house, everyone took a turn mowing the law, everyone took a turn doing
> dishes, everyone took a turn doing supper, etc. This worked pretty well but
> there was always someone grumbling about having to do a task they didn't
> really want to do.
>
> Pioneer Valley Cohousing had an annual retreat each year. One year, for
> their annual retreat, they conducted an experiment in what I consider open
> space but no one called it open space. Together, we made a list of all the
> chores that needed to be done for the community. Then we gave everyone
> stickers and asked them to put a sticker on a task they would like to do.
> We just wanted to see if everything could get done if we used an open
> approach. We wanted to experiment with what it would look like if everyone
> was free to follow what had heart and meaning for them. Would the garden
> still get weeded? Would the compost pile still get turned? Would the snow
> still be plowed?
>
> After the sticker exercise, we could see in a glance that there was someone
> willing to do every single task that the community needed to have done
> except for one. Only two people had put stickers indicating their
> willingness to take responsibility for doing the dishes for the twice-weekly
> group suppers. Not surprisingly, virtually no one weanted to do dishes for
> sixty or more people twice a week.
>
> So the Pioneer Valley Coho decided to let go of rotating community chores.
> They decided that they would step back and let folks do the chores they
> wanted to do, as a one year experiment. The only 'required' chore was that
> everyone had to agree to do the dishes once a month. A one year experiment
> was declared. And it was a great success. All the chores of the whole
> community got done, including the dishes. Although there was not a lot of
> clear passion for one person to do the dishes all the time, there was, it
> turned out, enough passion for the group suppers for everyone to be willing
> to pitch in on the dishes once a month.
>
> And everything got done. There were people who loved riding the lawn
> mower. There were people who loved weeding the garden. There were people
> who loved cleaning the shared main house. There were people who loved
> managing the community's bookkeeping and budget. There were people who
> liked organizing activities for the community's children and organizing
> social hours for everyone. There were people who liked to organize the
> pantry. There was someone who wanted to do everything that needed to be
> done. . . and more.
>
> When the Pioneer Valley Coho stepped back and trusted that each member
> would follow what had heart and meaning for them, that all the community's
> needs would be met, that's exactly what happened.
>
> I think this was an excellent experiment in open space, intentional
> community, Frank. And I particularly love this story because no one called
> it open space. It was living.
>
> This was a community of thirty two households, over a hundred members.
> Their core organizing process was a deeply understood concensus model but
> during the whole time I lived there, I always felt myself to be living in
> open space.
>
>
> --
> Warmly,
> Tree Fitzpatrick
> Hearthkeeper * *
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Warmly,
Tree Fitzpatrick
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