Newsletter November 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.
Fall is truly here now. It won’t be long before the busy holiday season is here. It can be hard to find time to connect during that busy season so we’re trying to plan ahead and set some time aside to connect. We look forward to spending time together
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.
Online Drop-In - Tuesday, November 11 12:00-12:45pm
A time to drop in and ask a question or just say hi. Life can be busy but this is an easy, informal opportunity to connect. No need to register ahead of time, just put this link on your calendar and show up.
Fall Feast Potluck - Sunday, November 16 4:00-7:00pm
Join us for good food and good company! We’ll provide a vegetarian main dish, drinks, and dishes. Bring your kids, bring your friends, we can’t wait to see you! Please RSVP HERE if you plan to attend.
Online Drop-In - Wednesday, December 17 12:00-12:45pm
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.
Welcome Vik and Ana!
We are super excited to have Vik joining us as an Exploratory Member, along with his daughter Ana! Vik enjoys cooking and his superpower is researching products and information. Ana enjoys cooperative games and fits right in with the kids here. We are so excited to have another child joining our community and look forward to lots of fun times together!
We continue to welcome applications for Exploratory Members. The process generally takes at least a couple of months from the time an individual or household requests an application to when they can move in.
Big Projects
In the past 6 months, we’ve had some big, ongoing projects and we’re seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
Purchasing the property and moving in was the big project over the summer. Most of it was done (with lots of help!) in May and we continued to get organized over the summer, finally getting the large storage container unloaded in September.
Shortly after we moved in, a couple of inspectors from the fire department came by to look at our building. They don’t normally do full inspections of apartment buildings like this, but the previous owners had failed to respond to a bunch of their calls, so everything they owned got flagged for a thorough inspection, and that’s how we got on the hook to correct decades worth of accumulated fire safety problems. Of course, many of these were things we were planning to do anyway (replace the crumbling front steps, get rid of trash piled in the parking lot, etc). Our final inspection is scheduled for tomorrow, and then we can proudly claim to be one of the safest old residential buildings in Minneapolis.
We’ve been working on our bylaws on and off for almost a year. We decided not to file them when we registered as a cooperative, because we were concerned about the cost of hiring a lawyer for a thorough review, and because Minnesota passed a bill last year specifically to regulate housing cooperatives (the previous cooperative statutes were designed for utilities and agriculture). The new statute, Chapter 308C went into effect at the beginning of August, so now we’re going through our last round of updates to our bylaws. Once the bylaws are final, we’ll reorganize as a 308C housing cooperative and then transfer all of the community assets (the title to the building, the property loan, and the bank account) to the cooperative so we’ll be fully organized and positioned to bring in new members and start working with investors and lenders to fund our future growth.
Our next big projects will be designing our garden and outdoor spaces next summer and building our addition. When we build the addition and how long it takes to complete will depend on when we have enough members and money to fund the project. One possibility is to build it in stages. We would really like to have the first stage done next summer so that we have some indoor parking for next winter.
Do you have skills or materials to contribute?
One of the ways we would like to engage with and give back to our neighborhood is by putting a Little Free Library in our front yard. We have an over abundance of books and we’d like to pass them on. Our plan is to have one shelf for kids books and one for adult books. We’d also like to put information about Twin Cities Family Cooperative in there for people to take if they are interested. We’d like to build our Little Free Library out of left over materials or materials that would otherwise be heading for the trash. Let us know if you have any materials that you could donate and/or if you would like to help with the construction of the Little Free Library. Thanks!
Cooperative Culture Study Group
“Becoming Whole”
This month Nancie reflects on “Becoming Whole,” one of the Cooperative Culture keys in Yana Ludwig’s and Karen Gimnig’s book “The Cooperative Culture Handbook.”
“Truth-seeking and blame-seeking are two of the characteristics of our punitive legal system which rarely lead to actual healing.” This statement stood out to me starkly as Yana Ludwig and Karen Gimnig discussed this way of being in community during a conflict. It had not occurred to me that we didn’t need to talk through a conflict to understand who held the truth (or even who was to blame), that we each come to situations with “a story we tell ourselves.” That is, we each have a perspective and interpretation of a situation based on our history, experience, values, etc. When resolving a conflict between two people (or more), what can lead to healing of the relationship is to tell and understand how someone got to their point of view in the conflict.
The authors are quick to say that this doesn’t mean that some pieces of data, some facts, or some legal requirements don’t matter. There are situations where they are important in making decisions. And there are situations involving power and abuse that may need swift action and boundaries. But many conflicts in community are more about emotional pain and a breach of the relationship. The authors share a 6-step process for healing the rift. Each step could be an article in itself, but briefly …
Authenticity - the ability to connect with and express one’s emotions in order to build understanding
Encouragement to self-honesty and discernment - knowing what my part was in the conflict and the ability to be compassionate with myself, which in turn can lead to compassion for others
Sharing the story of the trigger(s) - knowing our vulnerability and unhealed injuries from the past, help to understand what contributed to the current conflict
Looking at what’s at stake - why does this matter to me enough to be upset about it, perhaps especially about mission and values
Reflection for checking for mutual understanding - using good communication skills
Pro-active options - restoring the relationship through concrete, measurable steps to change the dynamics
A recent conflict in our community stands out to me. While the resolution to the conflict didn’t share all these steps, it was a productive experience of restoring relationships. A member encountered two situations that led him almost to want to leave the community. He shared these during a community meeting without blame and having worked through and being able to talk about and feel his emotions. He was able to say what he needed, and community members were able to hear and respect him and make a plan that we continue to work on. Being able to restore relationships and course-correct as needed, are core to becoming whole, as individuals and as an intentional community.
If you are interested, you can join Yana’s weekly Cooperative Culture Handbook Book Club Series on Sunday mornings. Here is the link with more information and registration. You can find other really great courses and resources on the FIC website. Remember, Exploratory Members can use up to $200 of their $500 member fee to take classes and get reimbursed for them.
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 develop internal economic policies that actively push back against capitalist expectations.
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.
If you would like to learn more about Twin Cities Family Cooperative, please watch a virtual tour of our community, visit our website and facebook page, attend our events (online and in-person), or fill out our Interest Form to connect. All past newsletters can be found here. If you would like to be removed from our email list, please email us and let us know.
