Why would anyone want to be a member of Daybreak?

You have to know your neighbors. You have to get to know them and share in their lives, and they will share in yours, and you have to grow older together. You have to work on a team or teams and be cooperative. You have to go to community meetings and struggle through to decisions. You have to help with community events and projects. You have to share meals with others, at least some of the time. You have to help people fix things and they have to help fix yours. You have to listen to children laughing and playing and even get to know some of them. You might have to help someone in an emergency and they might have to help you. You might have to listen to someone’s life stories and they might have to listen to yours. You might have to laugh or cry when you do. So, why would you want to be a member of this community? Why not just be alone.

by Ken Cameron-Bell

Annual Retreats

Once you live in community, it might seem silly to go off for a weekend all together. But just think about how much fun it is to go off with the family to the beach or a mountain cabin for a weekend. The same can be true for the community.

Coho Corvalis made it a priority to go on a weekend retreat this year. For Daybreak, we’ve gone away on two weekend retreats while we’ve been forming and they have been amazing. A fabulous time to build our bonds. For the last two years, we’ve had the retreats in September. This year we’ll be starting to move-in (!) so we’re planning an on-site retreat. Hopefully, we’ll go back to away retreats like Corvalis next year.

When planning the retreats, the retreat team asked the community what we were interested in doing and how structured we wanted out time to be. Typical of us, we wanted some organized and structured time together but also wanted lots of flexibility and free time. I think the teams did a great job finding that balance. And as a group we valued the organized activities intended to support building our bonds and the opportunity to create those bonds just by being together.

Our first retreat in 2007 was at Lost Valley Education Center. It was great staying in a well-established intentional community. Our second retreat in 2008 was at Cedar Ridge Retreat Center. Both had ample room for us and the basic (or not so basic) facilities we valued. The Lost Valley community prepared fabulous vegetarian fare for us and Cedar Ridge gave both omnivores and vegetarians a choice. Since food is a cornerstone of our community, our meals together throughout the weekend we’re important to us. And we didn’t have to cook! Although we did help with the major clean up at Lost Valley. Part of our community time.

The retreat teams scheduled some specific activities each day for the whole community. These often included fun (or heartfelt) get-to-know each other activities: ‘line’ games where the community strung itself from east to west based on where you were born, or strung itself from one to ? based on how many places you had lived; a personal sharing time; an hysterical ‘build-a-story’ time; sing-alongs, and more. And offered a number of optional activities that were offered or requested by community members such as, bocce ball, a knitting class, volleyball, a napkin-ring decorating session, or a permaculture tour. And on our second retreat, we discovered that we were really into games. Particulary board or card games. So besides going for walks around the properties, hanging out by the great room fireplace, chatting on a deck, or just reading a book, we played lots of games. We often had multiple games going at once all in the same room. Settlers of Catan, Apples to Apples, Scrabble, double solitaire, Scattergories, and more.

Oh, and we laughed. A lot!

"The Casserole Brigade" Update

The "Casserole Brigade" or "Meal Train" (as Daveena calls it) is back in action again.

Xander Morgan Wells was welcomed joyously into the Wells family and the Daybreak community on Sunday, July 26. The family arrived home on Sunday, August 2 with several community hand-me-downs already in place, including the co-sleeper and other stuff from Max. An initial supply of soups in the freezer started off the food deliveries. From the sign up sheet, the Wells family has gotten a food deliver every day this week! And the plan had been for 2-3 per week. Okay so everyone wants to meet Xander. The food sign up already goes out more then a month.

Informal Connections - The "Casserole Brigade"

It seems that so many of our Daybreak stories revolve around food. And this is another one. When talking about community, I like to share stories to give a ‘flavor’ of what community can be like even before we live at the same address.

Our personal support for each other has grown and already is a complex web of connections. For me, a prime example of this support is what I sometimes call the ‘casserole brigade’. The bringing of food to those in need is nothing new in society. I’m just amazed how swiftly we have incorporated it into our community. We’ve seen an interesting trail of support.

When Ken was in a bike accident last year, several of us would informally drop off some food so that Scot had more time to devote to Ken and her art. Once Ken was feeling better, but still not allowed to be mobile, we dropped by periodically to chat and visit. When Martha had major surgery, folks not only went with her to doctor’s appointments, we also had a two-week schedule to bring a meal for her every day. When Max was born, the food schedule was spread out in hopes of relieving Tiffany and Alex a bit. We also came by informally to help get things done around their home. When Julie headed off to South America for a couple weeks, we sent food offerings home with Matt periodically so he and Peyton could have simple meals without having to take time to plan, shop, and cook. And Matt was sent off to relax a bit while others babysat.

As with many things, we laugh and say all this will be much easier to do when we live at the same address.

Creating Rituals - Welcoming New Members

In a recent post I talked about the aprons we use as part of our welcoming ceremony for new members. And I haven’t put it into the context of our overall welcoming ceremony.

As with our community, our welcoming ceremony is informal and homey. And it still has a little structure. The idea was to make the ceremony a re-bonding experience for everyone and a simple, but heart-felt welcome. At their inception, rituals can feel a bit home-spun, but they build quickly and don’t need to be elaborate.

We begin with a community member reading our Declaration of Interdependence, written by an early member, Adin. I believe we still sigh and smile softly whenever it is read. Ken recently posted it to the whole group as a reminder that ‘we are all in this together’. Powerful words in these times. Then the community member who is the Buddy to the specific member we are celebrating, offers a few words about their relationship and their impressions about that special individual, couple, or family. The Buddy then offers a token gift to the new member. It can be an example of their relationship, something personal, or associated with our community. We’ve had small artistic renderings in a variety of mediums, spheres, notebooks, scrolls, scarves, all fun. The Buddy then offers the apron, that he or she usually has created, to our newest member. If it is a family, multiple aprons are donned. Sometimes, the joining member waits until this moment to make a ceremony of writing a check as part of joining the community. Usually our new members say a few words and the photo op occurs. Then we go through the ritual of formally adding the new member to our legal entity (boring) by signing a form, and we all sign a copy of our Declaration of Interdependence to give as a momento to the new member.

The beauty of this ceremony is that it has a little structure but is very fluid. The set elements are still relaxed and personal. They fit us well.

Informal Invitations

Creating Community in a Forming Cohousing Group Part 2

By Sterling Newberry

At various times, we at Daybreak Cohousing have felt the strain of so much work to do in developing our future home. We realized early on that we needed to be especially conscious of building in pure social time as a balance to all our work, and to ensure that the extended family relationships grow along with the infrastructure. This is part 2 of ways we are attempting to address this.

A second way we are building community is through informal group invitations. These are spontaneous and individually organized. Recently, I heard about a public invitation from Cascadia Commons, an existing cohousing community nearby, about a folk music duo coming to perform in their common house. I sent out an invitation over our Google group, and several people responded. We ended up being half of the group at the concert. We not only had a fun social time together with good music, but connected with our fellow cohousers as well.

These activities can be an open invitation to a movie, concert, forum or book or poetry reading. The key thing is that they are not about the work part of building our community. People come up with things they like to do and would love to have friends come along with them. While any one of us might have relied on a preexisting group of friends in the past, and might invite them to this informal group invitation, we also are being conscious about including our Daybreak family. This can have the benefit of mingling our emerging Daybreak family with our other friends or genetic family members as well.

These are less regular and more spontaneous than our Sharing Suppers, and attendance depends more on shared interests then the Suppers, which are centered often on our shared interest in food and being with each other around food.

By Sterling Newberry

Establishing Community Rituals.

Part of the joy and struggle of creating a new community is creating the threads that hold us together. In our society and in our workplace, we often take for granted the structures and rituals that help us identify with each other. Many entrepeneurs have experienced the process of building a business AND a culture from the ground up. Communities aren’t much different.

Many of the activities that unite a community arise naturally as people interrelate. And consciously creating rituals that reflect the community spirit can help too. At Daybreak Cohousing we came together early and often around the joy of sharing and eating food with each other. Many a community can come to a place where we roll our eyes at the mention, or even the thought, of another potluck. And we are no exception. Yet we still revel in socializing together around food. We have a potluck and social time before each of our twice monthly community meetings. Our Development Team has dinner before each of its weekly meetings, whoever is hosting the meeting cooks and we don’t talk business until the meeting. When our Membership Team rotated houses, we used to offer snacks, and we had to be careful to be grateful for a fab spread without getting into a competition.

When it came to creating our first welcoming ceremony for new members, we wanted to keep it simple but also be meaningful. We wanted some kind of symbol that might bind us all together and we settled on the idea of giving personalized aprons to each incoming member. The homespun decorations on the aprons reflect our artistic or fanciful natures. And something we cherish about the incoming member. The aprons reflect our interest in food and sharing that food together. They are simple and playful. And they join us together in the thought of wearing our aprons to cook and clean-up in our Common House. We often bring our aprons to events as a symbol of our togetherness. It certainly is colorful.

A Family Story and a Blessing Way

Raising a Family in Cohousing, Part 1

By Tiffany Yelton Bram

Cohousing is often touted as ideal for families. As a mom in a developing community, I thought it would be good to capture how cohousing shapes our family and how family shapes this community.

Let's begin at the beginning. My name is Tiffany and I moved to Portland, Oregon, at the start of 2006. I lived in Seattle and my husband-to-be lived in Portland. Since my family lives in Oregon and my husband loves Portland like a friend, I made the move here.

The first thing we did was to find a nice place to rent to give us time to think about how and where we wanted to live. Alex, my hubby, had been following a listserv about cohousing in Portland and he told me what he knew about it. Intrigued, I agreed to go to some of the meetings that different forming groups announced on the listserv. I went to a cohousing social on my own and met the folks starting Daybreak Cohousing (then Sunrise Cohousing). I told Alex that he had to meet them too.

I trust my instincts about people. My feelings about the Daybreak folks were immediately positive. I could see the dream they shared but, more importantly for me, I could see the plan they described and felt that they knew how to put that plan in action. We asked to join them.

Alex and I jumped into our new cohousing adventure. Soon we developed friendships with our cohousing group. We not only worked together on the project but we ate together, went to plays, white water rafting, camping and picnicing together.

Time passed and Alex and I talked about our future family. We are a bit older (in our 40s) and planned to adopt a child. But wonderful surprises happen and in December 2007, we found out we were pregnant. I was so happy and so scared. So we waited until we got through the first trimester and then shared the news with our cohousing community. The happiness shared with us was amazing.

And here is where the magic of developing these relationships struck me. The women of the community wanted to celebrate our pregnancy with a blessing way. I wasn't sure what this was and I was uncomfortable being the focus of attention. But I was so touched that they wanted to do this for me that I said “yes” and accepted the gift of the celebration. The day of the party was lovely. We gathered at one home and ate, shared stories of being children, of having children and memories of our mothers. Then I did something I hadn't done before. I shared all of my fears. About the health of the baby, the delivery, my ability to be a mom, the loss of my own Mom three years before. And my friends held all of that fear for me, held me and let me know that they understood. I got a lot stronger after that. Sharing this big life change with people who will be close to us in our life as family helped me build bonds I hadn't even known that I needed.

Now fast forward a bit: our son, Max, was born in August, 2008. He is terrific. Before every meeting, I tell him that we are going to go see our Daybreak friends. He often kicks his feet upon hearing this—one of his happy movements.

In future blog posts I'll write about our developing family, what we want for our life as afamily in cohousing and what enfolds.

By Tiffany Yelton Bram

Sharing Suppers

Creating Community in a Forming Cohousing Group, Part 1

by Sterling Newberry

At various times, we at Daybreak Cohousing have felt the strain of so much work to do in developing our future home. We realized early on that we needed to be especially conscious of building in pure social time as a balance to all our work, and to ensure that our extended family relationships grow along with the infrastructure.

Early on we instituted pot lucks before our community business meetings, and agreed not to talk about business during them. This works much of the time, but not always. It is challenging to come up with viable social activities when so many of us live in different parts of Portland. We often remark how much easier (and less polluting) getting together informally will be after we move in. I’d like to talk about some ways we are addressing this now.

In this issue, I’ll talk about our Sharing Suppers. The sharing suppers are scheduled, twice monthly affairs. One or two people volunteer to host them, and the agreements about what to do are very open. We set the dates ahead of time, attempting to place them such that they are not too close to other community activities.

Hosting is a very open concept. You are just taking responsibility for organizing the Sharing Supper. Your involvement can be as light as offering your home and asking people to bring food potluck-style to doing major portions of the cooking (perhaps inviting people to come over and help cook). We’ve had food themes, a game night, and a sing along. And invitations to meet at a restaurant with the host making the reservations! You could organize a picnic if you like. The key thing is for people to share food and fun together, and not be doing the work.

We’ve had good success with these gatherings, whether 4 or 5 people attend or as many as 20. As with most other Daybreak activities, we also invite our prospective members to participate. After all, this is a good way for them to get to know us socially (and vice versa) and helps them to make a good decision about whether we are the right community for them. Next issue I’ll talk about Group Invitations.

By Sterling Newberry

Learning from others while not attempting to duplicate.

As one of the co-founders of Daybreak Cohousing, I spent a lot of time in the early stages researching what communities who had come before us had done to build their communities, both physically and as people. The Get It Built Workshop by Katie McCamant and Rick Mockler of Cohousing Partners gave me a solid overview and foundation in the overall process and I highly recommend it. I found a wealth of generosity and information on Cohousing_L and in talking with folks in our local communities here in Portland, Cascadia Commons, Trillium Hollow and Penninsula Park Commons.

While not wanting to re-create the wheel, I was impressed and overwhelmed by the variety of solutions available to any given situation. There was a lively interchange about keys and children’s access to the Common House on Cohousing_L that opened my eyes to the possibilities. Each community had a unique, often very different approach to this situation. And they all worked well for their particular community. This taught me a valuable lesson early on. Trying to duplicate what works for other communities, may not work for our community. What has proved most helpful for us is to consider the range of solutions other communities have found helpful and use that as a starting point for further brainstorming and then settling on a solution that seems to be a fit for our particular community. We’ve found we often end up with a hybrid from the examples of other communities (maybe with a few of our own twists added in).

For example, most communities have some form of regular orientation sessions throughout their forming phase. We have found that formal orientations in which we are giving a presentation doesn’t fit our style. We found that regular twice-monthly gatherings, at Daybreak we call them Socials, specifically ‘structured’ so existing members and those interested in learning more about us can mingle informally and chat one-on-one or in small groups gives folks a better feel for us as people, helps them get their specific questions addressed and is more fun for us.

Thinking about Community

We've spent several years building our community of people. And maybe we haven't talked about US enough. These are the people that are making it possible for the buildings to go up. We are thrilled to see our 'home' emerge. And we love to talk about all the things we do and are to be a community now. We are excited to be working together as we prepare to move in! And we have a lot of work in front of us. Come along.