Have you ever been annoyed at someone who is disorganized or forget things easily? The person who wants rules followed to the letter or makes a face when they smell strong scents? Neurodivergent people (those with autism, ADHD, and other so-called disorders) live among us, and they are probably just as annoyed at you! In this workshop you’ll learn about the characteristics of neurodivergence, important accommodations people may need, and how we all can coexist peacefully in community.

National Cohousing Open House Days are coming up April 22-23, just two months from now. How can you show your love for your community effectively, online or in person? Come learn from a coordinator of the event and a video production expert. It can be fun and easy to show off the best of your community, and you can even get a wide range of community members involved to spread the load.

This session shows a brief provocative video and then do role-plays to explore how to get past emotional traffic jams. The focus is on skill development and to understand the dance between empathy and self-expression. 1. listening to understand 2. expressing ourselves to be understood This session is based on the theory and practice of Nonviolent Communication (NVC).

Nurturing member relationships in a developing community takes extra effort during these times. Peg Boettcher, Joyce Harvey-Morgan and Shelly Parks of Skagit Commons, a community under construction in Anacortes, Washington, will share what they’ve learned about fostering fun and making deeper connections with one another as they prepare to live together. Tips will include how to humanize general meetings, develop fun and engaging “happy hour” topics, and create strategies for meaningful internal communication.

A high participation session generating ways to apply the prInciples of The Sound Relationship House from The Gottmann Institute to Cohousing Neighbourhoods.

Sunnyside Village Cohousing, a forming community in Western Washington, has planned and conducted retreats both in person and over Zoom. We will share with you how we set goals, organized the day with pacing and breaks, balancing business with fun, and resources. We will share with you the differences we found between Zoom and in person.

Recent neuroscience research has shown that our autonomic nervous-system state is very influential in determining how well we can listen, think, respond, and act. If it is balanced, we can function optimally, offering the warmest and most rational and altruistic responses. If it is hyperaroused, in a flight-or-fight mode, or underaroused, in a freeze/shut-down mode, our ability to connect and participate in community can be compromised. Sometimes the dysregulation is subtle, and neither our neighbors, or even ourselves, are aware of it. In this workshop, I will teach autonomic nervous-system basics, and offer some experiential exercises which can help to balance it.

Rocky Corner Cohousing, in Connecticut, has been going through what could be every community’s nightmare, just as they were approaching move-in: construction challenges, financial overruns, bank foreclosure, government rule changes and funding delays, all on top of COVID and materials shortages affecting us all. Last week they were profiled on the Sunday New York Times Real Estate section in an article that omitted lots of details and, combined with the over-a-thousand comments practicing Monday-morning quarterbacking, created many wrong impressions. Join us as two members of the group share the reality and how it felt to deal with the challenges, with lessons for other communities in preparation and media management. And let’s explore together what this level of attention and energy means for the cohousing movement.

A brief introduction to Sociocracy followed by a description of how Sociocracy has contributed to loving community at Kawartha Commons Cohousing. This talk uses various components of Sociocracy, including rounds, check-ins, check-outs, and objections, as examples illustrating both the process of creating a loving community and loving to live in community.

This session with roots in Deep Ecology, Social Permaculture, Nature Therapy and Transformational Leadership will weave a web of understanding the interconnection between loving self, others, society, and nature. It will honor ancient origins and highlight some of the pioneering species of the Great Turning toward Love like Joanna Macy, Bill Plotkin, Starhawk, Otto Sharmer and more. There will be four elements of this session including an overview of these modalities, anecdotes of how they seed love, related actions people can take, and feedback about how they have or could be integrated into cohousing.

Author/Architect/movement co-founder Charles Durrett will be sharing insights from his new book Community-Enhanced Design: Cohousing and Other High-Functioning Neighborhoods related to how Cohousing alleviates isolation, especially in light of the pandemic. The talk will discuss previous patterns of social connection and how cohousing communities are adapting to covid, such as greater numbers of people working and studying from home.