This morning a friend brought my son home from a birthday party. Her sons had also attended the party and our house was on their way home, so bringing them all home together significantly reduced the carbon emissions. In other words, it was a good move for sustainability which we all value. But that isn’t… Read More
Consensus Rules
Most of us join a cohousing community with little experience of consensus. We find the ideas of shared decision-making quite appealing, but we don’t really know how to do it. So we read books and blogs and attend conferences and workshops and we try to find our way. Somewhere along the line most groups write… Read More
Can I Blog Here?
Yes! Well, probably. We welcome blog text from cohousers, those forming communities and cohousing professionals. We are a clearinghouse for all things cohousing and we want to offer as many perspectives and as broad a viewpoint as possible. You may have noticed that the majority of our blogs are written by CohoUS staff. This is… Read More
Why I Love to Take Out the Trash
As it happens, the community dumpster is on the far end of the community from my unit, so taking out the trash takes more time than it did back when I had my own curbside pickup. Funny thing is that despite it taking much longer (sometimes an hour or two!), it’s become my favorite chore…. Read More
In October 2011 in this part of Massachusetts, we had an unusual snowfall. Leaves were still on the trees, but big, fat flakes of wet snow fell from the sky. As the snow kept coming down, there was an increasing chance that snow-laden tree branches might fall on power lines and cause an outage. Now… Read More
Unite Cohousers!
It is time, my cohousing compadres, to plan for total global domination. We shall train an army of children to storm the streets on tricycles, tear up pavement and leave greenspace in their wake. We’ll crush the fearful isolated suburbanites with a brutal onslaughts of holiday cookies, smiling neighbors, and spontaneous music jam sessions. Entire… Read More
WebChat#6: Facilitation Techniques
In our most recent WebChat, Alan O’Hashi shared techniques for facilitation in consensus cohousing groups. His approach is to shift from the transactional methods common in the greater culture, to methods focused on transformation. Watch the video at this link: https://youtu.be/ZQnz8X_7DME Alan gives detailed explanations and interesting stories that demonstrate four major strategies for facilitation:… Read More
WebChat #5 Keeping Meetings Short(er)
Ted Rau Sociocracy for All Making Meetings Shorter Much appreciation to Ted Rau for presenting WebChat #5 earlier this month. We had a great audience who were drawn by Ted’s enticing topic “Keeping Meeting Shorter. After reminding us that meeting are about connection and that long meetings can breed resentment and lower participation, Ted offered… Read More
Rob Sandelin, a member of Sharingwood Community for nearly 30 years, was a prolific poster to the cohousing-l email discussion group, and positively influenced the development and growth of communities throughout the U.S. with his wisdom. Although he passed away nearly 2 years ago, his words continue to guide cohousing communities. Below is a post… Read More
Kids and Seniors make great community
For most families it is easy to imagine the benefits of sharing a cohousing community with other families with kids the same age. Naturally the kids will play together, the parents will have peers moving through the same stages together, and carpooling to activities is likely. I want to take a moment to write about… Read More
cohousing.org Website Progress
You may have heard that a new cohousing.org website is on its way. The website is a central part of the services The Cohousing Association of the US offers. As a clearinghouse of information and connecter of people and communities, our website is one of our most effective tools for doing what we do. The… Read More
When I think about non-profit organizations, I mostly think of helping those who cannot help themselves – those suffering in some way from poverty or illness or both. So why would I support The Cohousing Association? Isn’t cohousing about the place you live? Aren’t most of the people who live there middle class or above?… Read More
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