Then sign up for the “Roadmap to Starting a New Community” intensive on May 19 at the National Cohousing Conference!

When the initial members of Quimper Village started talking about building a senior cohousing community, we were overwhelmed by the multiple pieces of the puzzle. How do we find members? How do we find land? How will we organize ourselves and make decisions? When should we incorporate? Where do we get the money to hire the professionals we need? We turned to existing cohousing communities, especially those that completed construction in the last few years, for information about what they did. But since we had so many questions and at the same time didn’t know the questions to ask, the information we received just seemed to make the puzzle more difficult.

This week I received a call from woman on the other side of Washington state. She was asking questions about buying land, legal structure and starting out with an older group but maybe developing into an intergenerational community. Remembering our early days of floundering, I recommended that someone from their group attend the Nashville Cohousing Conference AND participate in the Friday Intensive titled “Senior Cohousing: A Roadmap to Starting a New Community” by SAGE Cohousing International and Charles Durrett. If you’re at the beginning of creating your senior cohousing community, I’d recommend you sign up as well. During this all-day intensive, participants will have the opportunity to learn what is working from others who have gone through it. It will be about talking through challenges, finding solutions, and getting the real skinny on how to successfully create the community and homes of your dreams.

Our motto at Quimper Village is “we don’t buy green bananas.” Time is short, don’t waste time and energy; get the real information in an organized fashion from folks who know what they are talking about. Building cohousing is exciting, risky, tiring and satisfying; no point in making it harder by not finding out what to do from experts.

Sign up by selecting the intensive along with your Conference registration here. I look forward to seeing you there!

Carolyn Salmon

Finance & Legal Team Leader

Townsend Meadows Cooperative

dba Quimper Village