Common House minutes: 2013-09-07

Special Notes:

Office rental; budget: guest room; paint job; mini jobs

Minutes:

Common house committee minutes September 7, 2013.
Present: Sari (minutes), Jim, Nicholas, Paddy, Becky G., Heather, Adi,
Elph, and Lois from TS (new liaison).


Minutes


CH office ,...... There is a new member in TS who is interested in renting the
middle office. We discussed the benefit of having extra storage, but
decided that it is in the interest of the community to have the office
generate income if possible. So, we are renting the middle office to the
new TS family for 206$/month. The rent for the offices was increased last
year by 3% (6$), and we thought it might be reasonable to do that again in
a couple of years, but not every year. We will discuss with them about
their internet usage and its possible influence on GO net (they work in
something related to computers), and about the quiet work space needed in
the adjacent offices.

Budget ,...... Becky and Adi spent time getting the committee up to date on the
budget. The main issue for the next budget year will be planning for the
kitchen remodel. We decided to meet again with a smaller group (at least
Sari, Becky, Heather and Elph) this Sunday at Sari,...™s house at 8pm to
discuss CH budget.

Guest room ,...... what to do when an outsider wants to reserve the guest room
(e.g. in order to visit the cohousing communities here)? Membership
outreach person seems like the most logical host for such requests (and the
bill could be charged to membership). If the outreach person is unable to
host, they could ask for a volunteer host from the community.

Sari will send an email reminder about guest room policy (e.g. length of
stay, providing your own sheets, clean-up after guests leave etc). Sari
will also make 2 framed guidelines to hang on the guest room wall: one for
the hosts and one for the guests.

CH dining room and hallway paint job ,...... Sari asked for a quote from Tribble
(who did the outsides the summer before this) and is waiting to hear from
them. They estimated it,...™ll cost about 1500$ = paint if we do just one coat
with the same colour to freshen up the paint 9money for this would from CH
maintenance). It,...™ll be about 40% more to do another coat (i.e. 2 coats on a
different colour). Looks like the most reasonable things might be to hire
it out but remain with the current colours to reduce cost and length of
paint job. Tribble offers a discount for winter months (maybe October to
April?).

Also when we buy paint we need to tell Sherwin-Williams we are from GO, and
we will get a discount there too.

Mini-jobs ,...... Several suggestions were collected from the community. Sari
will send them to membership. Two parents also emailed that their children
want to participate, but they are unsure of the process. We will suggest to
membership that they post guidelines along with a list of mini-jobs next to
the white board. Only GO tweens (kids aged 10-12) can do mini-jobs and earn
the privilege of being in the CH unsupervised.

Mini-job suggestions:
- Setting tables
- Folding napkins
- Bussing tables at the end of the dinner
- Emptying recycling boxes under mail cubbies
- Going through lost and found and identifying items that belong to the
community kids. They could deliver these items to the kids in question or
put them in cubbies.
- Weeding (e.g. on the play structure)
- Shoveling around GO
- Helping community members with their individual garbage and recycling
(especially the elderly or those with limited mobility)
- Sweeping sand back to sandbox and sand box spruce up
- Sand box spruce up
- Play room spruce up (after dinner when littler kids leave)
- Evening patrol to move toys out of the pedestrian walkways put down any
umbrellas that have been left up


Other issues:

- Heather will see about replacing the little red vacuum (it,...™s broken).
- Heather will also start to work on the ceiling repair/pipe issue (talk to
Judith as first step?)
- Sari will email Sarah about the carpet cleaner which may be broken



Next meeting: Saturday September 21st
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