NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/alt/coops/259

Text File | 1992-11-12 | 12.0 KB | 242 lines

Newsgroups: alt.co-ops
Path: sparky!uunet!east-win!kingdon
From: [e-mail] (Jim Kingdon)
Subject: NASCO Institute Report
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Jim Kingdon)
Organization: East Wind Community, Tecumseh, Missouri, USA
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 03:07:14 GMT
Lines: 231

This was written by me for the Federation of Egalitarian communities,
so it's not really a general-purpose report about what went on at
NASCO, but since I don't see anyone else posting anything...

Summary
*******

   I went to the NASCO Institute, a gathering of people from Student
co-ops.  I attended workshops on intentional community, committees,
education, and the environment.  I had a chance to talk with people
about communities, gay, lesbian, and bisexual issues, electronic mail,
and other subjects too numerous to mention.  I think it would be
valuable for NASCO and the Federation to continue to have contacts.

What is the NASCO Institute?
****************************

   The North American Students of Co-operation (NASCO) is an
organization of student co-ops, and the NASCO institute is an annual
weekend get-together featuring workshops, meetings, and plenty of
opportunities for informal contact between people of different
co-ops.  The typical co-op represented is a housing co-op, which has
communal dining for anywhere from 6 to 150 people, and has mostly or
exclusively students as members.  There were about 200 people at the
institute.

The Queer Caucus
****************

   This was a meeting of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people at the
institute, the institute at which there has been such a meeting.
About 30 people showed up, and we talked about things like homophobia
in the co-ops, non-discrimination policies, and allowing same-sex
couples in a co-op currently restricted to married couples.

The Informal Contacts
*********************

   People were more interested than I expected in community.  Quite a
few people (20?) approached me to ask about East Wind.  Among people
who just asked "where are you from?" (to which my standard answer was
"East Wind.  It's a commune in Missouri"), many (maybe half) followed
up with "how does that work?" or "tell me about East Wind" or
something like that.  I had expected to meet people who were curious,
but what I didn't expect was that there were about 5 people who asked
about visiting, and seemed at least somewhat serious.  Of course, I
don't know whether any of them will actually visit.  Assuming that
most people hear about us from more than one place before visiting,
it's hard to measure just how many people will eventually visit East
Wind that would not have if I hadn't been there, but based on the
level of interest it seems like this isn't such a bad way to attract
visitors. Attending Geoph Kozeny's slide show (which was one of the
workshops) and having him point me out was a good way to make my
presence known to people who were likely to be interested in
community.  Being alone made it easier for me to make a point of
introducing myself to people (there was a tendency for people from
the same co-op to hang out with each other, and I suspect that would
be equally natural for Federation people, if we sent a whole
delegation).  The fact that I was in co-ops in college was helpful in
having something to talk about with people, in keeping the thing
interesting enough so that I'd be motivated to strike up
conversations with people, and in providing me with background
knowledge.  But I don't think this is a prerequisite--after all, most
of the people I talked to were people I had never met.

Committees Workshop
*******************

   This workshop, "The Care and Feeding of Committees," by Joel Welty,
focused on committees as bodies that things are delegated to.  Thus,
it seemed most directly applicable to, for example, the Lilliput
design committee, the kitchen/dining facility design committee, the
board (when community meeting charges it with a task), etc.

   Welty encourages the charge to the committee (what the committee is
supposed to do) to be specific and in writing.  I think this worked
well for us with Lilliput.  It may be a good idea for the
kitchen/dining facility committee to go to community meeting to get a
specific charge analogous to that.  I think this might help with the
problem we sometimes have of committees running out of stream--if
community meeting or the board (or whoever) has it made it clear what
they want from the committee, the committee will more readily be able
to stay focused and get something done.

   The committee sends periodic reports to the larger body that gave
the committee its charge.  The larger body often (usually) just takes
note of this information, but if the committee is going off track,
the larger body should let it know.  The larger body should avoid
micro-management--this is the purpose of setting up a committee in the
first place--to avoid having to make all the decisions in the larger
body.  Seems like in community committee communications sometimes
function as a way to get wider input, which isn't particularly what
Welty has in mind by "committee reports".  Some committees which
aren't particularly seeking input tend to not communicate.  So the
issue is, "Can committees communicate without getting bogged down with
input?"  (and "how much do we expect them to respond to input?"). One
observation I have made is that if a committee has considered and
idea and decided not to do it for what seem to be plausible reasons,
people are more likely to respect that decision than if someone gives
an idea and the committee says "Oh, wow, I never thought of that".

   Do not move to refer something to committee as a way of disposing
of an issue; this just causes frustration for everyone.  "I move we
refer this to committee" is not specific enough--specify what the
larger group wants the committee to do.

   Welty suggests public hearings as a forum for emotional issues.  By
"hearing" he means people get to say what they think.  Discussion in
general, and arguments and back-and-forths in particular, are not
encouraged.  The decision, if any, is made at a later time.  This
reminds me of East Wind discussion meetings and Twin Oaks planner
forums.

   One way to avoid excessive turnover among committee members is to
make a big deal out of being on the committee.  For example, ask
someone if they want to be on the committee, but then enourage them
to think about it for a few days before they say "yes" or "no".
(This is a mild form of "making it a big deal" but the more extreme
forms he talked about would never fly at East Wind).

   Welty recommends not relying on a general call, like printing "Who
wants to be on such-and-such a committee?" in a newsletter.  This may
be a good idea in addition to seeking people out, but it doesn't tend
to get enough volunteers.

   When the committee is done, thank them.

   This workshop was very lively--the other participants had enough
experience with these things to offer input and ask good questions.  I
would encourage sending East Winders who think about such things
(Howard, Don, John, Rain, and Wu Li spring to mind but I'm probably
forgetting someone) to workshops like this in the future.  If it can
improve our ability to plan buildings, do long-range plans (assuming
we want them), etc., it is worth it.

Workshop on Communicating Co-operative Principles
*************************************************

   The principles in question, known as the Rochdale principles are:
Open and voluntary membership, democratic control (one member, one
vote), limited return on investments in the co-op, distribution of
profits to the members, continuous education, and co-operation among
co-operatives. This corresponds to the principles in our bylaws, or
to the federation principles.  We discussed ways of communicating
these such as brochures, videos, newsletters, printing them on
membership cards, etc.

   I think our communities do a good job of including our principles
in our outreach materials.  One interesting idea from the workshop
was to present them as benefits not as rules, for example "you have
the opportunity to participate in how the community runs" instead of
"the community is required to use a democratic system" or "you have
the right to a share of the community's income" rather than "all
income must be shared."

   Discussing these principles within the communities perhaps could be
improved--at least at East Wind sometimes it seems like these
principles are things we dredge up only when we are looking for
ammunition in some fight we are in.

Environmental Issues Workshop
*****************************

   For me the most interesting part of this was hearing about the
Oberlin Student Co-operative Association's program to buy local
produce.  When I was there people just talked about it, no one got
around to doing anything about it.

   What I found particularly interesting about that program was that
they used the environmental studies program to do a lot of the
research (where the stuff they are currently buying comes from, how
it gets here, etc.).  I believe this primarily took the form of
students getting academic credit to do this kind of research.  I
don't know if there are any environmental studies programs near here,
but one possibility would be to see if any Oberlin students want to
do a winter term project (for the month of January one needs to do
some sort of project) doing this here.

Electronic Mail
***************

   As you may know, I've been trying to develop electronic mail as a
way of communicating better between various co-ops, communities, etc.
 Two people, without prompting from me, expressed interest in using
it to keep in touch.  Electronic mail is particularly appropriate for
NASCO, since many students have free mail through their college, and
some are already junkies, or at least know how to use it.  Interest
was particularly high in the environment workshop, presumably because
of electronic mail's potential to save paper, gasoline, etc.  Whether
anything will come of this, I don't know.

Businesses
**********

   A number of people said they liked our nutbutter.  At least one
whose co-op is not currently buying our nutbutter expressed a desire
to do so (especially once I told him it had no sugar or hydrogenated
oil) (though he is not the one who would make the decision).

   There was a "bookstore" there with various co-op books, T-shirts,
etc., and also there was Co-operative Trading, who imports goods from
co-ops in the third world.  This was particularly interesting because
they had a jute hammock, cashews from Honduras, and tahini from
Mozambique.  If things like price, service, quality, etc. work out
for the nuts it would be nice to be getting them from a co-op.  I've
given the details to Joe and Rain.

Conclusion
**********

   So, what is the future of the relationship between NASCO and the
Federation?  I feel that our communities and the NASCO co-ops are
kindred organizations in a number of ways:  democratic control,
non-discrimination, environmentalism, egalitarianism (the dynamics in
terms of distrusting powerful managers, or how we deal with managers
who want what might be seen as perks are fairly similar at East Wind
and the Oberlin Student Co-operative Association), sharing of dining
living rooms, soap, etc.  This is not to say we are just like them,
in fact NASCO has recently decided to focus on housing co-ops rather
than trying to serve all kinds of co-ops.  But we can keep up
contacts--for example by going to the NASCO institute, encouraging
co-opers to visit us, maintaining electronic mail contacts, etc.
Such contacts could be valuable in terms of exchanging information
about environmental impact, education programs, group process, etc.,
and also in recruiting members, both for NASCO and for the
Federation.  Sandy Twin Oaks and I were once in student co-ops; Tom
Vecchio (Casey) now lives in a co-op in Madison which is a NASCO
member.  It is a pleasing vision to have people coming into our
organizations who already have experience in group living.  And I
think the resulting exchanges of ideas could prove to be fruitful.