>> You might think that she was just a trouble-maker, but that isn't the
>> point. People are entitled to be trouble-makers and, as the Late High
>> Court Judge Lionel Murphy famously said, much progress in human
>> affairs can be credited to trouble makers. Obviously, our
>> neighbouring co-op has taught any potential trouble-makers a fearful
>> lesson. The ruling clique demands absolute obedience.
I want to thank Bill for sharing his experiences and analysis with the list. His experiences are pretty interesting and bring up some interesting issues. I don't think much of this is relevant to the local legal and financial paperwork that I have to deal with in my projects. But I always appreciate somebody sharing their experiences. After many years involved in a variety of cooperative projects, I've learned that I don't know everything and that new experiences and insights are to be expected.
I've lived in a housing cooperative before and have written about that experience. That article is one of my more popular works and I still find pirate versions of it at punk shows and bookfairs.
Bill's comments about the process of expulsion from groups and co-ops are very interesting. A legally incorporated co-op should have safeguards that prevent mickey mouse purges of troublemakers and dissenters. Somebody who has signed a lease with a co-op should have the same legal protections as any renter. Several months ago I was working on the by-laws for our future co-op and I had to include some language about what happens when people leave the co-op.
If you take the broader range of cooperative projects and groups, I think that they should have a built-in structure to make it difficult to purge members. There are exceptions, of course, like people who are a physical threat to other members, but in general Bill's point about the importance of dissenters and troublemakers is well taken. It should be hard for cooperative groups to remove or purge or drive out members. Today's purge leader will be tomorrow's troublemaker. Groups often make hasty decisions about people. A structure and policies should exist that encourage people to "sleep on" contentious issues. Groups should have to give the "problem" person a fair hearing and an option to seek an outside mediator.
There is a variant of hasty group dynamics that I call the "February problem." Over where Bill lives this could be called the "August problem." I observed this phenomenon while living in a co-op in Madison, Wisconsin for several years. It involves the increase of hostility between housemates during the latter months or month of winter. People have been cooped up for several months and they tend to get more hostile towards other housemates. In this situation, I think the best thing for a house (or group) is to give things several weeks to cool off or resolve themselves.
During the period I lived in the co-op (which had 10-11 members), we had very few interpersonal conflicts and drama, compared to other houses. I attributed this to the fact that our house had irregular meetings, sometimes just 2 per semester. Other houses had weekly meetings. I think that anybody who is forced to go to a mostly unnecessary meeting every week is eventually going to start taking out their emotions and problems on other members. My theory is that the very frequency of meetings causes more problems than they solve.
Chuck