Free For All Fridays: Co-operative Communities

It was a toss up. Spousal abuse in Christianity, or co-op communities.

I know! Two completely different things. That's what happens on Free For All Fridays. Needless to say, I decided to go with Co-operative Communities because the other one is too dark and sad. I might write about it one day.

By the way - spousal abuse and Christianity should never be in the same sentence together.

Any hoo - don't you hate it when people say any-hoo?

What is a co-operative community?

Well, what it's not, is a commune or a cult. So you can relax about that. No one is going to make you drink spiked kool-aid or slave in the kitchen all day or demand that you get up at five am for prayers.

A community co-op is a community where each family or individual has their own home (whether it be houses or apartments) but have a shared meeting place, shared gardens, and shared tools. So each house doesn't have to have their own lawn mower or chain saw or other expensive and dangerous equipment that leads to dismemberment. And there I go being dark again. The shared meeting place usually consists of a gathering room and a kitchen but can include other amenities such as a swimming pool, a games room, a gym, workshops, craft rooms, guest spaces, etc. All those wonderful things you dream of but can't afford to put in your own house although I certainly hope you have at least a gathering room and a kitchen. Gardens can be individual plots in a shared space, or they can share one big garden that everyone works in. If it's individual plots then they may decide that one family grows tomatoes and another grows peas and people share the bounty. So if you are good at radishes but pumpkins make you mad, you can trade a radish for a pumpkin. Hold it - somehow that doesn't seem fair. Never mind. People often have community meals together, hold meetings where rules and decisions are made and problems are addressed, have regular activities like games nights and book clubs, and they watch out for each other. So if you decide to travel for awhile, you won't come home to find squatters have broken into your home and taken up residence and destroyed everything. Yes, that happened in my city. And of course, people blamed the victims for leaving their home and visiting family. Sigh. It does require co-operation to live this way. And you have to be committed to getting along with your neighbor and obeying rules so that everyone can live peacefully. So if you like to play Black Sabbath until your ear drums split, it might not be the kind of place you want to be - unless it's a Black Sabbath kind of co-op. I think this is the future. I can see groups of people who share something in common gathering and creating spaces like this. I know at church the other day we were casually talking about something like this. It would work with church groups, those who are interested in living off the land, people who want to live with ecology in mind, home-schoolers, people who work from home, or even just people who have nothing in common other than the desire to live in an active community. I'm going to link to one of these communities, not to sell it to you (they don't have any places for sale) but just as an example of one. Right now it seems that these places are for owners, but I would like to see renters be able to enjoy something like this. And right now, they are being built and designed by developers. But I can see how a group of people could get together and create something like this. You could probably start one by pooling money together for a large plot of land, and then park RV's on it until you can start building. Even if you want to just live in an RV you'll want to build the meeting space. I don't own an RV so I guess this isn't in my future either. To be honest, I've often dreamed of getting rich and setting up something like this for my family, where we all live in beautiful houses (all different styles) in a wooded area on Vancouver Island with a view of the ocean, and have our own community center. But unless I become the next JK Rowling/Steven King/Rick Riordan/or Shonda Rhimes - it ain't gonna happen. Anyway - here we go. The link to one local to me. Pacific Gardens

***** We are counting down some more! Three more days until my book give away! For four days my book will be free, free, free! Let me tell you. It's not easy to decide to give away a book. I wrote this thing. It took a long time. I poured blood and sweat all over it. Don't worry - this is an e-book so you won't get bloody and sweaty from it. So let people know about this. I want you all to read it to see how brilliant I am. Did I just see someone roll their eyes?