I’ve been away for a while but am happy to get back to this Forum. I’m interested in connecting with folks who’d like to set up a small cohousing community in northern New England or upstate New York. The outlines of this idea are pretty vague at the moment, but I’m thinking of an area of shared land with about a dozen houses clustered around a central square. We would use solar and wind to generate our own power, and share resources such as a wood-working shop, mechanical shop for maintaining vehicles and other pursuits, and a greenhouse for growing winter vegetables. Governance could be by Sociocracy. All of this is open to discussion.
I am currently living north of Plymouth New Hampshire, and working as a teacher at a small college, but am looking at retirement in 5-8 years, and am thinking about my next project. I have resources to bring to the proposed project, including skills and money, and am looking for others in more or less the same situation.
Anyone interested in having a conversation about this?
I frequently run into people in the tiny house world who’d be interested in this. I’ll keep you mind as opportunities come up. Also, I spend a lot of time looking at real estate in the northern 1/2 of VT. Are you interested in that kind of info too?
Joining an existing community is a lot easier than starting one, we’re learning this as we’re moving toward land acquision/connection with our cofounders, it all becomes very real and scary when its time to figure out what we each qualify for and try to collectively obtain land, it feels scary and daunting. While joining community is also expensive, there are homebuyer loans that aren’t usable in collaboration with others, most things are like that unless you have lots of money, this is what we’re running into in our group. But if you can attract people with enough capital then you can do this.
Hi Cecile. Like you, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Turkiye, including Istanbul and Adana. I still have friends back there that I get to see sometimes. Last time I was there was in 2012. I read the biography that you posted. What’s your interest in the proposed project? Are you interested being a founder?
Turkiye!!! so cool to hear you have had a chance to live in that spectacular place
I am interested in being a co-founder. Having spent the last several years as a solo founder, I have no desire to repeat that particular experience, but I have 30+ years of social entrepreneurship/startup/founder experience to bring to the table including the ecology of practices for shared power, called Collab, that I currently teach through Round Sky Solutions.
Hi Cecile, We currently live just north of Plymouth, New Hampshire, in the White Mountains. Let’s chat on Zoom sometime soon and see where these ideas go, eh?
I’m also trying to start a community in your general area! (Upstate NY in my case.) If you guys are doing a zoom call, would you be open to letting another person join? (Me :P)
