Newsletter December 2024
Building a community that brings a more equitable society, better quality of life, and a harmonious life with nature.
This is our last newsletter of 2024! (We’re getting it out early because this month’s potluck will be early in the month.) Reflecting back on the year, we’ve gotten to know many wonderful people and enjoyed spending time in community, we’ve made significant progress, we’ve had challenges and disappointments, and we still have hope and determination to build the community that we want to live in.
Upcoming Events
THIS SUNDAY! Community Life Online Gathering - Sunday November 24th 4:00-5:00pm
Our November Community Life topic is Sharing Meals. Use this link to join the discussion. You can email tcfamilycoop@gmail.com to let us know you will be attending or with any questions. Letting us know who will be attending is helpful for us in preparing. Thanks!
Monthly Potluck - Saturday, December 7th 3:30-6:30pm
During this time of many holidays and traditions, we invite you to join us to share in each other’s cultural and family traditions. You are invited to bring a dish that has been important in your culture or family. It could be related to a holiday but it doesn’t have to be. Please email tcfamilycoop@gmail.com to let us know if you plan to attend and we will send you the address (we may be at a different location this month). Also let us know if you have any dietary restrictions.
Cooperative Culture and Community Life Online Gathering - Saturday December 14th 10:00-11:00am
December is a busy month so we will have just one online gathering. Our topic will be Sharing Resources Well. See below for more on our discussion topic. Use this link to join the discussion. You can email tcfamilycoop@gmail.com to let us know you will be attending or with any questions. Letting us know who will be attending is helpful for us in preparing. Thanks!
If you can't make it to these events and you want to connect, email tcfamilycoop@gmail.com. We’d be happy to connect in person or online.
Property and Investors Update
A big thank you to the people who have reached out and offered to be investors! We got commitment from several folks for a total of about $80,000 out of the $200,000 needed to make an offer on the property where we were hoping to build our community. We received word that the seller of that property accepted another offer. We expect to know by the end of November if that offer went to closing. If that sale fails for any reason and we are able to get more investors, we would be able to make another offer. If that property is not an option, we have another property in mind that would allow a few households to live together, although we would continue looking for a property that would allow our community to grow. If you are interested in being an investor, it’s not too late to reach out and learn more!
Cooperative Culture - What is it?
Share Resources Well. Continuing our conversation about Cooperative Culture - What Is It? based on Yana Ludwig’s and Karen Gimnig’s book “The Cooperative Culture Handbook,” this month we look at the difference between “mine, all mine” (mainstream culture), “share without boundaries” (counterculture), and “share resources well” (cooperative culture).
Sharing our resources is a key element in intentional communities. We share resources to engage in mutual aid and to live more ecologically sustainable as a community. The authors suggest another benefit that comes from sharing resources, that it brings about stronger relationships, “slowly building intimacy and safety and vulnerability.” (p.107)
“Owning your own home is a classic sign of success. It never occurs to us that access to things could be achieved by anything other than ownership.” (p.106) Mainstream culture is so ingrained in us that seeing other alternatives to individually owning all of our needed resources is often outside of our ability to even imagine that it could be different. Each household owns a lawnmower or a set of tools or a full set of kitchenware, etc.
Trying to live another way, counter culturally, can lead to sharing resources without paying attention to how those resources are shared or if they are used equitably, “everyone simply takes what they need when they need it and no one can count on shared resources being there when someone else needs them.” (p.106)
“The key to sharing resources well is clear agreements, boundaries, and accountability.” (p.107) At Twin Cities Family Cooperative we are developing Community Agreements to help guide us to share resources with equity and to enhance all of us in the community. As we are planning our space, some households will have their own apartment while others will live more communally, regularly sharing the common kitchen, living room, dining room, and other spaces (e.g., a game room, or a library of shared books, etc.). As we live together we will develop agreements about sharing the common space. Those living more communally can pare down the amount of kitchenware that is needed, donating the duplicates/excess to families in need. And yet there are other things that we will each retain ownership of. All of this will necessitate clear communication and agreements, and perhaps at times difficult conversations. While some Community Agreements are in place, other things will come up as we live together and be addressed at the time.
Finances is another area where we will strive to have a blend of equitable resources and individual/household ownership of one’s financial resources. This will be talked about in more detail in a subsequent newsletter. But in short, while we will not be an income-sharing community, at the same time we are striving to develop a process for putting into the community equitable amounts of our financial resources. More on that later.
Please join us in December for our online conversation about sharing resources well. What has been your experience? What are your values, dreams, questions, etc.?
Our Vision
We are an intergenerational community, raising families together: committed to connection with each other, environmental sustainability, and living in harmonious relationship with the land. We share governance and work by consensus decision-making. We are queer-affirming, gender-inclusive, multicultural, and multigenerational individuals, couples, and families. We value the spectrums of the human experience and each individual’s diverse abilities. We strive to live out of a place of abundance, working to dismantle the systems of racism and oppression in our society.
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