Attendees:
Kathleen Hamilton
Ilene Nehme
Dorie Grace
Tom West
Suzanne & Michael Joss
Becky Weaver
Colette Henricks
Michael Finney
Selwyn Polit
Cat Barron
Greg ?

Report on Sharingwood by Michael & Suzanne Joss who have lived there for 4 years
Individual lot model with some shared land, houses were built individually in 2 circles
The common house has a kids room (a bit to small), no guest room
They pay $50/month to the association to pay for group expenses, taxes, etc.
50 adults and 30 kids
Work is divided up among teams- children’s team, landscaping teams, etc.- people participate in at least 2 teams- these drive the projects
Recently they added the 2nd phase of Sharingwood – 10 new homes in circle formation – went much more smoothly than original plan - made $100,00 on top of money to pay for common house – so they are considering expanding common house.
Diverse reasons why people are part of community- don’t always feel like they have a common vision- this makes it challenging at times.
Have some rental units- they think that it keeps things diverse
Community has a yearly retreat

Project overviews

Waldorf /Oak Hill Co-housing:
6 familes- 12 adults, 14 kids- all Waldorf families
Have met once so far
Working on a vision statement

CAC
In process of looking for land

Austin Rural Co-housing
Looking 20 minutes east of Austin
Thinking about strawbale, organic gardening
One old member (Laura Smith) has put an offer on 40 acres- planning on selling off 10-acre lots to families interested in community.
Also possibly looking at forming a development company to spearhead the project.
Suzanne suggested that the more you have in place, the more willing families will be to get on board.

Happy Feet
No representatives present – so we this is only hearsay
Not pursuing their land in South Central Austin
Exploring N street type approach

Hilltop (San Marcos)
No representatives present – just got an email from Todd
All systems go – need more families to buy in.

Mission statement was reviewed
CACTUS promotes and facilitates the creation of cohousing in Central Texas through education, public action, and resource sharing.

Reviewed Q1 plans:
Website:
contacted co-housing.org and co-housing resource- website can be set up for free, plan on having links to each groups page, Michael mentioned that we may offer it as a service to co-housing groups- charge a fee, a web page will be in place next month

Budgeting/Funding:
Possible ways to generate money: Eileen and Selwyn are interested in grant writing, fundraising, event planning, documenting our process, working on getting the 501C
We passed the hat and collected $79, which we agreed would be used to fund cactus activities.
Selwyn agreed to be the temporary treasurer.

Slideshow:
Created slide-show committee: Selwyn, Cat, Becky and Colette and Greg (477-3343)
Becky said it would be a great way to educate people about co-housing- not just potential members but members of the community.

Intro/Recruitment Meeting:
This is a meeting planned for sometime in Q1.
Possible locations: Casa de Luz.
Created PR Committee: Eilene and Michael- agreed to do be part of the PR committee for doing PR thru end of Q1 (31 Mar 2002)
Dory agreed to be in charge of coordinating the Intro Meeting.

Next Meeting Agenda:
Treasurer
Updated resource sheet
PR committee
How we handle new people – do they come to CACTUS meetings or some other event
Review Q1 agenda/status
Next meeting at Tom and Dory’s house

Do we want to have each meeting start with 30 mins intro for new folks – then invite them to stay if they want for the business meeting (show slide show, video, q&a)??

Committees formed & planning activities & with duties/timeframes unclear:
Web committee(Selwyn & Eileen)
PR committee(Eileen & Michael Finney)
Slide show committee (Selwyn, Cat, Becky and Colette and Greg (477-3343)
Q1 meeting committee (Dory)

Next meeting scheduled for Dec 4

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