Leaves of Twin Oaks #131

News of the Oaks by Valerie Movement Support by Ollie Coldvember by JaneState of the Commune by Valerie

News of the Oaks by Valerie

We’re continuing to have a rise in membership. With around 75 members there’s a lot going on.  Celebrations ● New member Ollie has been hosting “Gay Bar” parties, giving us all a chance to dance and show off our fabulous outfits ● We celebrated Steve’s 80th birthday—he is a huge Grateful Dead fan and we had our in-house Grateful Dead cover band play for the evening, and looked at photos of Steve’s long life ● We do not celebrate Thanksgiving here; instead we observe the National Day of Mourning with an afternoon of videos by and about Indigenous people, with discussion. We held our Gratitude Feast later in November and hosted many friends and ex-members for the dinner, which included the ever-popular “Ping-Pong Table of Desserts.”

Gratitude feast dessert table	Raen makes pesto	Day of Mourning poster

● We had our yearly “Art Walk”, in which members display various art they have been creating, and we have a walking tour through the community to admire peoples’ creations.  Farm Life New member Raen has been making good use of our greens by making pestos using our home-grown basil, spinach, cress and tat soi (an Asian green similar to bok choy), and we have been enjoying this nutritious and delicious treat ● We’ve also had 2 new baby calves born, adding to the herd we keep for dairy/meat purposes. ‍‍‍

Movement We have been offering a multitude of movement classes lately. We’re currently having regular Capoeira, Aikido, and Yoga, as well as a Ballet class for some of the kids here ● And in a different type of movement, we recently instituted a Racial Justice Orientation session as part of our Visitor Program, as a way of moving ourselves along the path of becoming an anti-racist community. ‍	One display for Art Walk 2023

‍ Movement Support: Political Activism by Ollie

New member Ollie has become manager of Movement Support which is one of the more unusual areas through which Twin Oakers can get labor credits. While most labor areas are for activities that benefit the community directly (garden, the Seed Racks business, etc.) Movement Support is designed to give labor credits and money to members who do work outside the community to support causes we believe in. Historically this has included many things ranging from protests and direct action to collecting acorns for the Virginia Department of Forestry Nursery to support future tree planting and much more.  Recently, after a period with no manager of the area and not much being done, new member Ollie has become manager and several people have started doing more activities being funded by Movement Support. ‍

Food Not Bombs in Louisa

Locally, several Twin Oakers and folks from other communities in Louisa county have started a Louisa chapter of Food Not Bombs. This national organization is an all-volunteer movement that recovers food that would otherwise be discarded, and shares free vegan and vegetarian meals with the hungry in over 1,000 cities in 65 countries in protest to war, poverty, and destruction of the environment, and we have, for about two months, been distributing food for free in downtown Louisa every Sunday from 1-2pm. When Ollie mentioned this to long-term member Steve he mentioned that Oakers used to bring food to the Richmond Food not Bombs for several years decades ago.

A little further afield, in the past several months, Movement Support has provided labor credits and travel costs for Twin Oakers to travel to Washington, DC to attend protests in support of a cease-fire in Gaza. Just last week we filled up our 15 person van with Oakers attending the January 13th protest. Further afield still, Oakers traveled recently to be part of the movement against the Mountain Valley Pipeline in West Virginia.  Ollie is very excited to be the new manager of this cool area and is really looking forward to helping Oakers out of our little bubble to engage with the world beyond the farm in meaningful ways and to keep fighting oppression everywhere. We’re always looking for new ways for Oakers to participate in movements off the farm, so if you’re organizing in the area and need some friendly communards to help, feel free to contact us!

Coldvember by Jane

‍A few months ago, I was reminiscing on my travels abroad, and remembered one particularly adventurous morning, when I jumped into Galway Bay in Ireland. Dubbed “Coldvember” by the university students there, masses of them jump into the churning ocean waters. I joined in one day, and seeing the pictures made me want to recapture some of that joy and bravery. I put up a note up saying I would be jumping into the pond every morning in November, save Sundays. Most people thought I was crazy, but sure enough, 3 other brave souls joined me that chilly first morning! Overtime, our numbers grew, and on November 8th we had a whopping 9 people in the pond that day. We have shrunk a bit since then, to a core group of 4 or 5.  The shock of entering the water is instant–some of us like to work our way in slowly, but I find the only way I’m getting in is by sprinting in screaming. I’ve been told we are audible from the courtyard, with one co thinking a chicken slaughter was underway! On the first few days we ran in and out, but recently we’ve stayed in as long as 6 minutes. After about 4 minutes I find my body starts to feel warm, and by the time I exit I’m actually quite comfortable. Getting dressed again is probably the hardest part- the teeth chattering and shaking hands makes it difficult to dry off quickly.

Author, Jane, on left, and other brave swimmers

So, what’s the purpose of this craziness? Cold plunges have been shown to improve heart rate and circulation, as well as provide some benefit for mental health. It also helps your body acclimate to the cold—I have found I can now walk around easily with a thin winter coat and gloves, whereas I used to struggle to keep myself warm with tons of layers. Other co’s have noted feeling more awake afterwards, and needing less coffee or other substances throughout the day.   As of writing this, we have three more plunges left. Part of me will miss it- the camaraderie of the group, the feeling of accomplishment every morning, and the clarity of mind that comes with it. Some of us are thinking of continuing the challenge and have dubbed it “Coldcember”. It’s turned into something of a Twin Oaks trend, with co’s who would never dare of jumping in following our progress. Regardless of whether we continue this challenge into December or not, it will certainly be remembered!  There are definitely some people who would not benefit from cold plunges- the very young or very old, and folks with heart conditions. Check with your doctor and do research before trying it out!‍

State of the Commune by Valerie

Twin Oaks is always a reflection of the mainstream to some extent. What is happening “out there” also happens here. Right now, in the world and in this country, many long-term entities that are somewhat cooperation-based are struggling (eg. US postal service, western democracy) and we are no different. Polarization is more of a cultural force than it has been, creating greater divisiveness and demonization / othering in this country, the wider world, and also at Twin Oaks. Mainstream culture itself is undergoing many changes. We are definitely experiencing the effects of those cultural impacts.  We’ve had a number of challenges in the community in the last several years, and we are continuing to feel the effects. When the covid pandemic hit, by coincidence we were at low-ish population, and we in ways became like a “medieval plague village” and had no visitors and limited contact with the outside world for some months. We are still recovering from that low population. Somewhat connected to that, as well as the above-mentioned cultural change reasons, our decison-making and organizational / administrative structures are not as robust as they have been (fewer experienced members to join administrative teams, our collective town trips happening less frequently, etc.) Each of our main community businesses are having their own particular challenges and that is affecting our financial situation. Our infrastructure is aging and we have found mold in many of our buildings. There is some tension around how we are moving forward dealing with that mold, partly related to difficulties in our various income areas and community businesses.  The dynamic between newer, younger members and longer-term, older members has always existed to some extent, but related to the afore-mentioned greater polarization overall, this has become more pronounced here in the last couple of years. A number of other long-term, established communities are reporting similar challenges and changes, and unfortunately, some of them have ceased to function as they have been, and these beacons and models of alternative culture have been lost.  The good news is we have a great group of current new members—there are a quite a few of them and they are bringing good energy and ideas to the community, so that is a strong support for us. We also have the steadiness and experience of our committed, long-term members. Our population is slowly rising again.   Also, one potential advantage of this time of less solid structure is that we would like to change some aspects of our culture to become more anti-racist and inclusive. That is easier to do when there is already some “give”, rather than an iron-clad adherence to “how it’s always been”. Our focus during this era of our history is to find ways to maintain and strengthen the parts of Twin Oaks that make us a unique alternative cultural reality, while making changes and responding to cultural changes, current challenges and the needs/wants of current members.  ¡La lucha continua!‍

Membership, Art, Water, and a Question

by Raven

Here’s this weeks sample of stuff from our Facebook feed. As usual, there is a significant time delay. These are from the middle of January.

I’m sure some of our Commune Life readers are interested in how someone joins one of these communities. After Twin Oaks posted a link to their membership process, I republished the link on our Facebook feed.

Here’s the actual link to the Twin Oaks membership page.

This did pretty well on Facebook with eleven likes, two loves, and over a hundred and seventy views.

After this, looking for something I could post from East Wind, I found their membership process and published a link to it the next day.

Here’s the actual link to East Wind’s membership process.

This did a little better than Twin Oaks, with eight likes, three loves, and over a hundred and eighty views.

Acorn published a drawing from deceased member Curt (that I misspelled Kurt).

This also did well, with four likes, two loves, and five cares (and, yes, that doesn’t add up to twelve but that’s what Facebook keeps telling me), and over a hundred and thirty views. 

Glomus Commune/East Brook Community Farm is having some work done to increase their water supply and irrigation capacity.

This post did okay with three likes, a love, and a hundred and two views.

Finally, I have started putting questions on Facebook again. It’s a great way to engage viewers and it really drives up the number of views. I thought that I would start the year with this question:

Surprisingly, there were only eight comments, but I thought that they were good ones.

While there were only eight comments, it got nine likes, four loves, a share, and four hundred and forty-four views. As I said, these questions generate a lot of views.

A reflection on the evolution of Twin Oaks

By Keenan (from Your Passport to Complaining)

Dining: 

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Llano is crowded, noisy, and filthy and should be condemned.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) ZK sets new standard in luxuriousness and cleanliness at Twin Oaks.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) ZK is crowded, noisy, and filthy and should be condemned. Dining should happen in Llano, but only if it has a less offensive name.

Visitor program:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Visitors housed in SLG’s.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Visitors housed in Aurora.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Visitors housed in SLG’s and Ta Chenerates housed in Aurora.

Degania:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Degania is built for childrens’ program.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Degania abandoned.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Degania used for childrens’ program and then Degania abandoned again.

Technology:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) No video allowed anywhere.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) No video allowed in bedrooms.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) No video allowed in public spaces.

Allowance:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Allowance is .75 cents a month
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Allowance is $35.00 a month
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Allowance is $115.00 a month

Behavior issues:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Behaviorism will deal with any problematic behaviors among members.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Behaviorism doesn’t work. Problematic behavior is dealt with through policy: feedbacks, support groups, process team, mediation, mental health team, and membership team.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) nothing works to change problematic behavior—reject all visitors who exhibit any potentially problematic behavior.

A/C:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Air conditioning kills the planet.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Air conditioning protects equipment, but is not for people.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Air conditioning kills mold and saves lives.

What is offensive: 

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Makeup and shaving are offensive.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Having babies is offensive.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Wrong pronouns are offensive.

Buildings:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Naming buildings after past communal efforts is uplifting and inspirational.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) No new buildings to name.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Naming buildings after past communities with problematic values is offensive.

Children:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) No children until the community is ready.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) The community raises children. Biological parents discouraged from caring for children. Censor children’s books to remove all mention of “mother” or “father.”
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Pregnancy approval process to ensure that parents really want to be parents. Parents raise children.

Labor:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Variable labor system (members work too much).
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Quota is set at 49 (members work too much).
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Quota is set at 42 (members work too much).

Taking a break:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Don’t leave the farm during a hammocks push.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) P.A.L. policy
• Twin Oaks 3.0) P.A.L., Suspended membership, Emotional LOA, Sabbatical, and Associate Membership.

Building design:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Members reject mainstream building practices, like proper foundations. All building labor comes from Twin Oaks members
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Members accept mainstream building practices and most building labor comes from Twin Oaks members.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Building labor is hired.

Income:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Hammocks is main income source. Concerns about Pier 1 as main account eventually prove accurate.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Tofu is main income source. Concerns about cost of upgrading tofu eventually prove accurate.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Seed Racks is main income source. Concerns…?

Decision-making:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Members involved in all decisions of the community.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Decision-making happens at the managerial level after much community process.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Members are sometimes, but not always, informed of decisions.

Ex-members:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Ex-members are treated like traitors to the values of Twin Oaks.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Ex-members are treated like old friends and welcome to come to parties.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Ex-members buy adjoining property.

Cleanliness:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Cleaning is a bourgeois middle-class affectation that focuses on appearance over substance.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Cleaning with chemicals is bad for the planet.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Mold kills! Scrub everything! Use bleach!

Trees:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) There are no trees near newly built buildings.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Plant trees to provide coolness and shade buildings.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Fight mold! Cut trees near buildings down! 

You are a long term member after…:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) 2 years
• Twin Oaks 2.0) 5 years
• Twin Oaks 3.0) 10 years

Longest term member at Twin Oaks:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) McCune
• Twin Oaks 2.0) McCune
• Twin Oaks 3.0) McCune

Communal networking:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) Twin Oaks is isolated and focused on survival.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Twin Oaks helps build a national communal movement (Communities magazine, builds FEC, Leaves of Twin Oaks, welcomes national media).
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Twin Oaks helps develop a local network of communities in Louisa County.

Leaving Twin Oaks:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) You get nothing if you leave Twin Oaks.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) You get $50 and a hammock.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) You get nothing if you leave Twin Oaks.

Death:

• Twin Oaks BETA version) No need for a cemetery.
• Twin Oaks 2.0) Cemetery in the woods on a hill.
• Twin Oaks 3.0) Can’t keep track of buried bodies.

This is mainly satire, please don’t message the blamer…also…make your own additions to the evolution of Twin Oaks.

Agreements and Policies #6

by Raven

6:  Membership

I’m convinced that every community needs a membership process.  I’ve seen several communities that didn’t have one (including the one I’m in now) and it’s usually led to some unfortunate results.

A membership process is important to develop but I include it this far along because I am also convinced that a community needs to have a clear vision in place (and also have its financial systems developed) before creating a membership process, because the membership process is built on the community’s vision.  I strongly recommend the chapter in Yana Ludwig’s Building Belonging on ‘Membership and Recruitment’.  She clearly states, “The more radical and mission-driven your vision is, and/or the more intimate the community is, the more careful you need to be about your membership and decision-making.”

Again, she begins the chapter on membership by saying, “One of the most important tools your community has for keeping our intentional community intentional (and avoiding the dreaded mission drift) is having a clear, caring and robust membership process.  You can either have clear boundaries at the beginning, or you can navigate really messy dynamics later on.”

So, start with your vision.  What are you looking to accomplish?  How can you convey this to people who might be interested? There are folks that might be great community members but if they are not aligned with the vision, there are likely to be problems.  (Among them, the “mission drift” Yana Ludwig refers to.)  On the other hand, some folks might believe strongly in your vision but might not be good at or even capable of community living.  A good membership process screens for both issues, ie, you want folks who are aligned with your vision and who can live communally and contribute something.

Membership begins with some type of recruitment, maybe just talking with your friends or some type of word of mouth, but usually there’s some type of outreach.  Most outreach that you might want to do involves what I would call ‘narrowcasting’.  If broadcasting involves getting the word out as widely as possible, ‘narrowcasting’ involves targeting your outreach.  Why advertise in places where very few people understand what you are trying to do, let alone be interested in being part of it?  I talked a lot about the process of how to find people in my first “Starting from Scratch” post, including a list of useful places to advertise.

A good next step is to have people visit.  Someone can sound great on paper or on a brief phone or video call and turn out to not be good at all at community living.  Many communities require a three week visit with the idea that this will give folks a better idea of what this person is like to live with.  After the person leaves, the current community members can gather together and try to figure out if it’s worth pursuing the process with the person further.

If so, the next step for many communities is some kind of provisional membership (or trial membership–different communities may have different names for this phase of the process).  Here someone begins living in the community and has certain rights and responsibilities but not as many as a full member.  Usually the person’s membership is evaluated after a certain period and the full members decide if they would like the person to continue on to full membership.

These decisions are not always easy and are one of the most important reasons to use consensus decision making.  While I don’t usually advocate blocking as part of decision making, it’s important that everyone feels happy about living with someone.  If a lot of people like someone and one person just doesn’t, it’s worth more discussion, since this will tell you a lot more about your current membership and the needs of those involved.  Also, maybe that one person is sensing something no one else has picked up on yet.  Hopefully, with a lot more discussion, a decision can be made that everyone feels good about.  (The only time I ever remember blocking a decision was, ironically, about the co-op house membership of someone that I actually liked and would have liked to live with.  There was one person in the group who wasn’t willing to block but wouldn’t let the process go forward because they were uncomfortable with the idea of living with the person.  After a couple of weeks meetings where we weren’t able to come to a decision, I realized they were unlikely to change their mind, and it was better for the person requesting membership–and the co-op which was trying to fill a house–for any decision to be made, so I blocked the person, which allowed us all to move forward.)

Once a person is a full member, it doesn’t mean that they are there forever.  As Yana Ludwig points out, everyone leaves the community eventually, and it is usually one of three ways:  by choice, by request of the community, and by death.    I will explore all these possibilities in future posts, starting with Exit Agreements, which occur when someone chooses to leave, which is by far the most common way that full members leave.

Agreements and Policies #3

by Raven

3: Work and Labor

Every community requires work.  Most communities try to divide the work up equally or compensate those who do more work.

Here’s where there is a big difference between the communes (income-sharing communities) and the rest of the communities.  Within an income sharing community, money is irrelevant (although it certainly matters when the commune is dealing with the outside world).  In an income-sharing community, work is the currency.   This plays out in how labor and work function within these communities.

In non-income-sharing communities(co-op houses and cohousing for example), there is still a need to get work done.  I haven’t lived in cohousing but my understanding is that a lot of this gets done through committees.  In co-op houses, work becomes chores.  Since most folks work outside of the house for pay and use that to pay the bills, chores are necessary to get the work that the co-op needs done.  Cooking is a chore, shopping is a chore, and cleaning is a chore.

Chore wheel examples

How these chores get done in a fair way varies from co-op to co-op.  Some use the infamous chore wheel (above)–one week you need to clean a certain area, the next week it’s your turn to shop, etc.  Since cooking is needed several to seven nights a week, usually everyone has a different night to cook.  Many co-ops these days use fixed chores.  One person takes care of the trash and recycling, while another is responsible for cleaning the yard, for example.  The advantage of fixed chores is that you get to focus on an area (perhaps one that you are good at and/or enjoy) and if something isn’t being done, it’s obvious who is responsible.

I often say that chores don’t exist in a commune. Since no one works for themselves, it’s all community work.  Work that earns money benefits the commune.  Cooking, cleaning, etc, benefit the commune.  Generally all work is equally valued and often you get to choose what you want to do and when you want to do it.

In the bigger communes (the Kat Kinkade communes so to speak, Twin Oaks, East Wind, and Acorn) they track labor hours.  At Twin Oaks they use labor sheets and keep careful track.  Acorn was more loose about it although I know that they were recently (at least a couple of years ago) experimenting with labor sheets and more careful tracking of hours.  Last I checked, Twin Oaks and Acorn required 42 hours of work a week and East Wind required 35.  However this work could be anything the community needed: work that brought in money, cooking, cleaning, building, laundry, road and path maintenance, fixing things, etc.  (Although I think that East Wind has a requirement that a certain amount of the work be done in a money making area.)  All work is equivalent–an hour of work is an hour of work no matter what the work is.  

Filling out a Twin Oaks labor sheet

Twin Oaks justifies its 42 hour requirement by pointing out that if you are in the mainstream and work 40 hours at a job, you still need to cook and clean (and often fix things or pay for it) for yourself and that is quite a few more hours.  At Twin Oaks, you don’t need to cook unless that’s what you want to do for your hours, and you don’t even need to do laundry if you participate in their communal clothes system.

The smaller communes do things a bit differently.  My understanding is that Sandhill didn’t track hours and they certainly don’t at Glomus Commune and we aren’t doing it in the little community that I am now part of.  Of course, we want to be fair but there are other ways of making sure that work is at least somewhat equitably distributed.

When I was at Glomus we used three different ways of paying attention to the distribution of labor.  The first (and generally what we do here) was in a small commune, it’s not hard to know what everyone is doing.  Secondly, there was a section of the weekly meeting where folks reported what they had been up to.  And third, and I think key, we had a yearly ‘Roles and Goals’ report where people talked about what they saw as the work they were doing and what they hoped to achieve over the next year.  (We recently looked at all our different roles here and it was very helpful to see what each person was doing.)  

Something that I also noticed at Glomus and is true here as well is that you don’t need to worry about people doing the work if people are doing stuff they really want to do.  The farmers worked long hours because that’s what the farm required and they were dependent on each other–and they all really wanted to farm.  I’ve noticed it here as well.  Each of us is doing the work we are committed to, because we are committed to it, not because we have some predetermined set of hours.

Glomus farmers at work

I am going to recommend this for anyone trying to start an income-sharing community.  Tracking is necessary in a larger community but no community starts off large.   If you are starting as a small community, trust and paying attention to each other is what’s important in a labor system.  Talk about what each person wants to do and see if that makes sense.  Look at the gaps–what things still need to get done.  Who will do them?  How do you make sure that it’s all fair, that no one is overworking and that no one is really slacking off?  As I said, it’s hard to really slack off in a small community without other folks noticing.  And if someone really doesn’t want to work, they probably don’t belong in the community.

Unfortunately, community building and community maintenance is work, sometimes hard work–but I think that it’s also satisfying work.  If you are starting a community, talk about your labor system.  Figure out a way to get everything the community needs done (including bringing in enough money to survive) and figure out who is going to do what.  Write it down.  This is the beginning of your labor policies.

I will look more at money and how communities deal with it in my next post on Agreements and Policies.

Acorn Portraits, LEF Harvest, and Twin Oaks Article

by Raven

As I said last week, since we restarted this month and the month began on a Friday, rather than reposting a week of one day and a week of five, I covered three days last week and will do the next three days this week. Next week I will repost a full week of Facebook posts (usually five posts, sometimes less if I didn’t get enough material from the communes and had to repost something from here onto Facebook).

This weeks posts covered stuff from three of the Louisa County communities and each did okay on Facebook.

Acorn posted a series of pictures of their current membership.

This post did well with five likes, a love, and a care, and a hundred and seventy views.

Living Energy Farm posted a picture of a basket full of green beans and strawberries.

This did okay at with a like and a love and just over a hundred views.

Zamin Danty added a comment on the aesthetics of the picture.

Finally, Twin Oaks is the largest and oldest secular income-sharing community in the country so naturally it gets written about. They recently posted this on their Facebook page which we then reposted.

Here’s the link to the full article.

Again, this did okay on our FB page, with two likes and over a hundred views.

Starting from Scratch #9

by Raven

9: Agreements and Policies

As I said in my last ‘Starting from Scratch’ post, I’ve just moved into an already functioning community. One of their major challenges was that they didn’t start with much in the way of agreements. In this post I want to look at a list of agreements and policies I think every community should have and I will briefly say why I think each of them is important. For many of them, I will write future posts detailing the particular agreement or policy. (I’ve written about agreements before, but mostly about why they are important. Here I want to list most of the agreements and policies you want to make. And as I mentioned in my previous post, I developed this list from my time working with Cotyledon and Glomus Commune as we were developing policies, as well as watching communities like Compersia struggle to create policies, and also after reading Yana Ludwig’s book on Building Belonging which has a good list of policies that starting communities should think about.)

Here is my list, along with a bit on why.

First of all, you need to decide how you will decide things. This is the first thing you need to do, because you need a way to collectively make decisions in order to create these policies and agreements. I will talk more in a future post about various methods of decision making.

Next, I believe, your group needs to create a Vision/Mission Statement. This is key because I believe that everything else, all your community’s policies, flow from this statement. Again, I hope to devote a whole post to this.

After this you can begin to create your community’s policies. Here’s my current list of what I think are important policies to have in place.

A Labor System: Everyone is going to need to work, at least in some capacity, to keep the community going. This is a lot more important in income-sharing communities, where work is the currency, but every community has some work involved, and to be fair, everyone needs to do some. How do you decide who does what and how much should each person do? Yes, this will be another post.

Financial Systems: How are you going to get money? How are you going to track the money you get? How are you going to budget? You can be as communist as you want but your community still has to survive in a capitalist system.

Stipend/Allowance/Mad Money: Income sharing communities take care of each members needs but it’s also good to have some money that each person has that they can spend on little extra items they might want, money that they can spend, no questions asked. How much? How often do they get it? How do you decide what’s a necessity and what’s a luxury?

Membership Process: How do you decide who is a good fit for the community? (I’ve seen communities try to go without having a membership process and I’ve also seen it backfire. Badly.) Like the decision making, this is tricky at the beginning. What do you do about the initial group of people? Make them go through the process or just grandmother them in?

Legal Structures: You have to deal with the outside world as a community and it’s good to have some kind of legal entity. Welcome to the world of LLCs, 501c3s, 501ds, housing cooperatives, and home owners associations. It’s as much fun as it sounds like. And yes, you are probably going to need to consult with a lawyer at some point. Hopefully only briefly.

Land Ownership: Who owns the land, the buildings, the property? In an “egalitarian community” it’s all supposed to be equal–either we all own it or no one owns it. (You can have a community where everyone is a renter.) Two interesting possibilities are land trusts and permanent real estate cooperatives.

Exit Agreements: It would be nice to assume that everyone is going to stay forever, but the reality is people come and go from communities. How do you make it easier for someone to leave if they decide to or need to? We take care of each other while we are living together and I think it’s important to take of someone when they leave, particularly if they’ve been a member for a while and put quite a bit into the community.

And those are the easy policies. Here are the ones that are trickier but you absolutely want in place because things will be worse if you don’t

Conflict Resolution Structures: Most people don’t like conflict. (I’m an admitted conflict avoider.) Having some kind of agreed upon way of managing conflict before conflict happens makes things a bit easier.

Violence Policy: Hopefully it’s not going to happen, but you don’t want to try to figure this out when you are dealing with a really difficult situation.

What to do if a member is sick, disabled, or dies: If your community is around long enough, it’s going to happen.

Finally, the two you really don’t want to think about and you really need to have in place: a Member Expulsion Policy and a Community Dissolution Policy. No one wants to think about expelling members and even less about dissolving the community but, like the violence policy, it’s going to be even more horrible if you are trying to come up with a policy under the high stress of one of these happening.

The good news is that these don’t have to be permanent policies. You can revisit them or change them over time. When we dissolved the Common Threads community, we had a policy in place which we basically ignored because another solution made more sense at that point.

Policies aren’t there to bind you if everyone can agree to something else. They are there as a fall back when you can’t agree. Fortunately, you already have something in place as a default. Having policies already can make a really hard time just a bit easier.

How to Build Community, The Book

by Raven

I’ve written this before, but for the last five years, the most popular posts on this blog have been my posts on “How to Start a Commune” and “Four Steps to Building a Commune” and Paxus’s piece on “So you want to start a community”.  Obviously, there’s a lot of folk that want to create communes and communities.

I’ve reviewed books written about how to create communities, most notably DIana Leafe Christian’s Creating a Life Together.  Yana Ludwig has also written a couple of books that talk about (among other things) community building, but the FIC just published her latest book, Building Belonging, which simply focuses on it and may be the best thing I have ever seen on how to build community.

This book fits well with my ‘Four Steps’.  Chapter 2  is entitled “What Makes a Good Founder and Founding Group?”  (That is, it starts with the people.) Chapter 3 is entitled “Phases of Community Creation”.  The first phase is “Set the core patterns for this community” and mentions  the following ‘pieces; ‘Vision and Values’ (which is covered in Chapter 5), ‘Decision-making system’ (which is covered in Chapter 7),and ‘Membership processes’ (which is covered in Chapter 8), before talking about ‘Economic structures’ and ‘Labor structures’ (both covered in Chapter 9).  Phase 2 is “Property acquisition”  (a lot of which is covered in Chapter 11).  My four steps are to find the people, work on vision and agreements together, figure out sources of income (more important in an income-sharing community, but as Yana points out, economic and labor structures are important for any community), and then look for a place.  Notice that Yana’s order and mine are basically the same.

When she gets to Part 2, Yana devotes the first chapter (Chapter 5) to “Visioning Your Community”.  As I’ve worked with and visited more and more communities, I have come to believe that everything flows from your (collective) community vision.  This is why I’ve given a couple of workshops on ‘Collaborative Community Design’.  I think that this is the most important first thing (other than possibly deciding on your decision-making process) a new group can do.  Yana writes “This visioning work is often the first real chance to practice sharing power.” She gives a story from her community building attempts where they didn’t start by visioning together called “Learning from my pain on visioning”. And finally, she reprints six different mission statements from successful groups that she thinks are “really good”.  I will write a post in the future about why I think that vision and mission statements are so important.

She also has a bunch of exercises for groups that want to start a community to do and refers to more from her Cooperative Culture Handbook.  I could go on and on about why I think that the individual things in this book are absolutely key (she covers things like “Culture, Diversity, and Justice Work”, “Power, Conflict, and Decision-making”, “Some Basics of Community Design”, and “Becoming a Good Community Member” among many other topics) but I just want to say that I think this is the best, step-by-step book on creating community that I have seen.  If you are one of what seems to be many, many folks interested in starting a community of any type, this book is for you.  This is especially true if you are interested in starting an income-sharing community.  Where Diana Leafe Christian’s book on Creating a Life Together has a bit of a bias against income-sharing communities, Yana Ludwig’s book has a little bit of a bias toward it.

Building Belonging is published by the Foundation for Intentional Community and is available from them.  What more can I say?  You want to build community?  You want to read this book.

Yana Ludwig

Trauma, Belonging, and Community Building

“We became human in groups.” Long time communitarian and ex-Twin Oaker, Sky Blue talks about our need to belong and the ways that trauma gets in the way of community building.

A Twin Oaks Review

A couple of weeks ago we published a video review of most of the Louisa communities by someone who visited them. This is their review of Twin Oaks. It’s not particularly positive and I think they get some of the details (especially about assets and income) wrong, but it’s useful to see another perspective on the place. It’s also unfortunate that their visitor period coincided with the beginning of the pandemic, which I’m sure colored some of this.