Every year around this time we have a community retreat. It is a time for all of us to reconnect. To get to know each other on a deeper level. Sometimes the retreat is facilitated with outside help and sometimes from members of the community.

The first night, Friday night, we have a potluck, a ceremony of some kind,and then we watch the Heartwood movie. The movie is made by gathering all the photos and movies that people have taken of life at Heartwood or individual accomplishments for the year and these are put to music by two of our teenage girls. They have been doing this now for several years. It is a fun way for them to contribute and the product is always amazing and something we can look back on in 10 years and see how we have changed and grown.

Lately I have been thinking about what CoHousing is like from a child's perspective. And as Oliver Wendell Homes said, "Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children." For them it must be heaven. No meetings, no money worries, conflicts come and go at the drop of a hat. So I asked some of the kids in our neighborhood what they like and don't like about living in CoHousing. What was the most telling, was that many of them couldn't come up with anything they didn't like!

Here are some of the answers I got:

What do you like best about CoHousing?

"I can ride my bike all over the place."
"Being able to walk to your friend's house."
"Playing with my friends."
"There are a lot of things, there is a lot of room that we can run and play out of the cluster"

One of the challenges of managing a community is how to track all the tiny maintenance tasks that are not ongoing. Ongoing tasks can be assumed by one person who takes responsibility for doing them when they need to be done. Responsibility for large one-time tasks can be assumed by a temporary team. For example, completing a short walkway from a parking lot to a gate, working a few hours on three Saturdays.

But for the small things or the tasks that only need to be done a few times a year, regularly scheduled workdays have proved the most successful. At Takoma Village, we schedule a workday from 9:00 to 4:00, including a simple lunch, every two months, alternating between Saturdays and Sundays. One in the fall and one in the spring are focused on the grounds. This has been a wonderful way to get work done and for many adults and children to contribute to the community.