Newsletter February 2025
Building a community that enjoys a rich quality of life for all ages, brings a more equitable society, and a harmonious and responsible relationship with the natural world.
With the trouble in the news these days, it can be discouraging and frightening to think about the future. Our biggest strength is in community. By coming together, we can find and give support to each other as we strive to live out our values with hope and courage. We can model a way of living for our children who will carry these into the future.
Upcoming Events
In an attempt to not fill your inbox with unwanted emails, we don’t send out reminders throughout the month. If you would like to receive email reminders before each event, email tcfamilycoop@gmail.com and say “sign me up for reminders.” You can specify if you only want reminders about online events and not in-person events.
Monthly Potluck - Sunday, February 9th 3:30-6:30pm
Join us for good food and good company! We’ll provide a vegetarian main dish, drinks, and dishes. This is a very family friendly event. Please email tcfamilycoop@gmail.com to let us know if you plan to attend and we will send you the address. Also let us know if you have any dietary restrictions.
Cooperative Culture Online Gathering - Saturday January 15th 11:00-noon
This month we will explore the topic Differences Are Good. 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!
Children in Cohousing - Saturday, February 22, 9:30-11:00am
What would be advantageous for kids and parents in such an environment? What would be challenging? What might senior members have to gain or lose? These are some of the questions that will be discussed in this event, hosted by Twin Cities Cohousing Network. Join Twin Cities Family Cooperative at this online event by registering here.
Check our website or facebook page for events in the coming months. 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 Update
As more properties start to come on the market, we’ve been spending more time looking at properties online to find one that will be big enough and configured for several families to start living in, close enough to our desired location, and within our budget. We can find several that meet 2 out of 3 requirements. Finding properties that meet all 3 requirements has been our challenge. This past week, we found one that, while not our dream property, does seem to meet all our requirements, at least as a starting point. We set up a showing and will likely make an offer within a week. We currently have 3 households that plan to move in upon closing. Additional units will be available for Members and Exploratory Members of Twin Cities Family Cooperative. Becoming a Member is an in-depth process that takes many months. Reach out if you would like to learn more!
Due to our limited start up finances and our short timeframe, we don’t expect our first property will be our final property. We expect to purchase a property that will house several families and be good enough as a first step. We plan to continue looking for a more ideal property where we can build our larger community of around 15 households. There are many ways this could happen including finding a property that is already built and suits our needs, finding a property to renovate, or buying property (with buildings that we demolish or with no buildings) where we build our own building.
We are working with a wonderful realtor, however, properties that will work for us may not show up in a search because they fall outside our search parameters. For instance, someone gave us a tip about 3 adjacent single family homes (in bad repair) that were being sold where we could potentially demolish and build our own building on the combined property. Another person knew of a church interested in selling part of their property. If you know of a property that may work for us, we’d love to hear about it!
Learning from the Experts
Nancie is taking a live class on Membership from Yana Ludwig on Wednesday mornings throughout the month of February. The topics include Membership Selection, Building Your Membership Process, Recruitment Basics, and Bringing Members in With Care.
She is also taking a class from Karen Gimnig on Conversation and Relationship Building in Community. The class meets on Thursday afternoons. Topics include Listening: what we miss and why it matters, Discernment: how to pick your fights, Feeling safe enough to be vulnerable, Embracing Disagreement, Facilitation: working through power struggle to find common ground, and Healthy feedback for healthy community.
For more information and/or to register if you too would like to take the class, go to ic.org and look under the section on Communiversity.
Cooperative Culture
Differences are good (with a focus toward parenting/children). 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 how we deal with differences. This seems especially appropriate as this month we are focusing on raising children and parenting in community.
We often have values, beliefs, and make choices that cause us to parent differently from someone else. In mainstream culture there can be a tendency to either judge or fear judgement from other parents whose ways are not the same as our choices. And counterculture is not that different. Seeing things in mainstream culture parenting that we disagree with and want to do differently, one might still get locked into “there is one way to do it right” and associate with those who think similarly.
“Retraining ourselves to lean into differences as positive, rather than threatening, is a core skill of real cooperative culture. It helps to think of different ideas as adding to the creativity and innovation of a group, rather than taking something away.” (p.83) This is where being curious rather than judging can help one to understand another person’s choices and decisions about how to parent their children. Honoring and respecting others' choices while negotiating where the styles bump into each other, is critical when raising children in an intentional community. Seeing that differences can be good, can clarify one’s own parenting style, and can perhaps enrich some aspects of parenting not otherwise known.
Our Vision
We are an intergenerational community of individuals, couples, and families. We are queer-affirming, gender-inclusive, and multicultural. We value the spectrums of the human experience and each individual’s diverse abilities. We support each other in raising children and throughout all stages of life. We strive to live out of a place of abundance.
We are committed to nonviolence and environmental sustainability. We believe in the potential for radical transformation of society and see communal living as an element of that change. We strive to make meaningful contributions to society, engaged in dismantling the systems of racism and oppression in our society, including ways that capitalism supports those systems.
If you would like to learn more about Twin Cities Family Cooperative, please visit our website and facebook page, attend our events (online and in-person), or fill out our Interest Form to connect. If you would like to be removed from our email list, please email us and let us know.
