When members got together earlier this month, we spent an inspirational day taking small steps toward our vision for sustainable community living.

Firstly, as no doubt there will be numerous tricky decisions to make at each stage of the project, we enjoyed participating in a facilitated consensus decision making workshop. As a result we have the makings of a process where we are more likely to make wise decisions that we can all own.

While relaxing together for lunch, we were delighted that Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner was able to join us. It was a fascinating discussion and we found him to be very supportive of our project! Watch out for more detail on this in the next blog post.

The afternoon was led by board member Shubhanaga, with a presentation and discussion to help us develop a brief.

Building on our Vision, we explored what stage we are at on the cohousing journey, potential cohousing models, the market context, finding a site, the planning context, dwelling sizes, affordability, values, sustainability and shared facilities.

There are many issues to take forward, and since the meeting we have produced a survey covering all the above (and more!) and sent it to all current members.

Some members during part of the recent day together.

This will help us to demonstrate our collective needs and vision for the community at this stage, and inform how to best use the three workshops that we have fixed dates for in the coming weeks. It will be fascinating to see the results, which will be analysed and reported back to members in January.  

There remains a strong sense of shared excitement about the potential for our community. If you’d like to join us, there is no obligation to commit to anything, but we will send you a survey and invite you to our lovely meetings.