The workshop of June 12th was called “Get to know each other”. We imagined it as the very first step in the process of learning more about our fellow @reeflings; skills, passions, drives, anxieties. And we do need to know: we are about to start a big, scary, exciting project together. To do that, we need to learn to work together. Just as importantly, we need to learn to trust each other. Even with the best decision making techniques available, deciding as a group means that each of us, occasionally, will walk down a pathway advocated mostly by the others. I am fine with this, because I firmly believe that no one (and certainly not I!) is smarter than everybody… in theory. In practice, I find it much easier to join in the vision of others if I know and respect those others. I don’t see a way to pull off building a cohousing without smart, compassionate, committed, hardworking partners.
Granted, a one-day workshop is not enough to get to know someone. This was always the case, and frankly I expected that the 12th June workshop would happen with a smaller group of 10-15 (including the four founding members + Ada), not with 22! And yet, despite the obvious limitations, some tentative learning did happen, at least for me. Here’s my takeaways points:
- Healthy work culture. During the opening and the closing circles (but also at the public presentations), many people had words of appreciation for the mix of idealism and down-to-earthness that inspires The Reef. And it’s true: if it were not a shard of better world, building it would not be worth it. But if we do not pay very close attention to the specifics (the site, the legals, the money, the removal of possible sources of conflict…), building it will not be possible. During the workshop, I saw this appreciation in action, as various people stepped up to help with the organization, the facilitation, the cleanup.
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Brussels-style diversity. When we arranged ourselves “by alphabetical order of the English name of the country in which we were born”, from Australia to Syria, that was peak Brussels! I cannot imagine anything like that happening in Milan. Also, many walks of life
. - Impressive skillset. Already at the very start of the process we had in the room many of the competences we are going to need to build a cohousing, both hard (like architecture, accounting and finance) and soft (like facilitation). More are needed, but they will come.
All in all, a very promising first step for me. What about the others? Did you get to know the group, and the people in it?
