Common House minutes: 2018-06-23

Minutes:

Common House Committee Minutes

June 23, 2018

Present: gail, nancy, marta, elph, and robyn from Touchstone

MONKEY: Send out expectations for reservations and whole CH events

Agenda

1.TS having issues of CH misuse and would like to talk to us about our
experience

2.Laundry room report

3.Thermostats

4.Reviewing policies

5 Report: Last Weekend experience of unknown party without reservation
using dining room before a morning event

1.TS having issues of CH misuse and would like to talk to us about our
experience

TS has had a series of issues. Had some issues of drunkenness and
friends over with a renter who has since moved out. Have had sink full of
dishes and have done lots of reminding. Latest is guests being disturbed
late at night by noisy visitors. We thought it might be teenagers but no
evidence and got backlash from teen parents for blaming them. Had some idea
that it might be the GO teenagers coming over. But no evidence. Cameras on
each door have been suggested but community has some people who are very
much opposed and very much in favor. There is a movement to involve the
kids in using the common house responsibly and having some positive focused
events but nothing has happened yet.

Q: Is this something that happens and Sunward too? Is this just a
perennial problem?

A: probably

A: Teens are not really interested in getting more involved. Attempts
to get clear with them has not helped.

A: At the last community meeting someone said that treating teens like
responsible adults is not appropriate. Something about how mental
development is in a stage that makes that difficult.

A: We would like to spend time with the teens, maybe in a weekend, to
learn more about what their needs are. And we need to find age specific
ways to address it.

A: The trick is to recognize that things are going to happen but to
have some control over it

Q: At TS we have some folks who really want it all to just stop… and
that is unrealistic - we really want to focus on ways to communicate

A: One of our themes has been that the common house cmtee is not the
police of the CH - it is everyone’s responsibility to look out for the CH

A: Another theme has been that the best approach is going direct with
the person responsible for misuse. It takes a lot of strength to do that.
But it tends to work well - if we can find the person.

A: We have found that sharing information about misuse to the community
has had strong emotional reactions (out of bounds with rational discussion)
needing in-person connection which makes email reports unrewarding to do,
need to share this information on observations in another form, or over
another, more appropriate channel

A: The camera idea has the upside of being able to identify people to
go direct with but the strong opposing feelings on the part of some members
has made that impossible.

A: We are really hoping that a skills and thrills on/with teens can help

A: The thing to keep in mind is that this is not an end of the world
event - we’ll all still be alive. And for teens involved we want them to
look back and feel like they had a positive experience and were respected.

Noted: It is so nice and normalizing to talk to people who are having the
same problems.

2.Laundry room report

Good news: the floor paint is dry now.

Some folks are cleaning and painting the walls this weekend.

Leave the dehumidifier on - contractor says that plus warmth is helping
dry it out

Moving back the machines is scheduled for Sun even - get volunteers
from dinner

It has been nice to have neighbors volunteering their machines

Coming to the end and we have learned some things!

When we do the kitchen perhaps scheduling it for xmas break is best -
and estimate 2 weeks to dry. But the air will be dryer and it may take less
time.

Here are some details from my chat with the flooring contractor.

Sam brought out a moisture gauge and found that the outside edge of the
room does show medium moisture. He suspects the concrete is sucking it in
from the ground outside and that had a part to play in the slow drying
time. If we had done the dehumidifier for the first week instead of the
open window (with 80% humidity) we probably could have cut the drying time
in half but it still would have been longer than usual due to the moisture
in the cement.

He says for cleaning it to just water and a mop and it should clean right
up. Maybe a mild soap but no harsh detergents - otherwise we lessen the
lifetime. And no waxing and stripping. The stripping will degrade the
epoxy. Treated well the floor finish should last a couple of decades.

3.Thermostats

We had some reports of thermostats being off schedule.

Checked them all and they are programmed correctly.

Discussed with Melisa. She asked some good questions and to address
them we will print the hours the system is scheduled to reset temperature
to defaults, will set the fan to run every hour for air circulation, and
will lock the settings down again now that we are off both heat and cool -
it was confusing for that.

4.Reviewing policies

A set of printer CH Guidelines going around for each cmtee member to
review

5. Report: Last Weekend experience of unknown party without reservation
using kitchen and dining room before a morning event

It was reported by a member that they had some difficulty with an event
being scheduled last weekend. The event, a large children’s birthday party
/ slumber party was scheduled for Sat night with no indication it was going
to run through the night, involving the kitchen and dining room the next
morning. The next morning there was another event in the CH and it was
pretty messy. Most things got cleaned up (maybe not the bathroom) but it
was still out of sorts enough to be a concern at 7am, but ended up not
inconveniencing for the later morning event. (how about the 8am one? Ask
Olas?)

Ok, how to make it better?

Q: Was the person responsible talked to directly?

A: Yes, one of them.

Q: Should we post a weekly schedule?

A: not sure who would do it, or whether it would be of value because it
would be wrong immediately, and may not have helped with the confusion on
this event.

Q: Should we have a refreshing policy moment on schedule?

A: Always a good idea

Q: Should we print up the expectations?

A: Can’t hurt

People really need to let the community know if they are doing
something that really uses the whole CH, especially if the kitchen and
dining room (e.g. the whole CH) is used on the next morning.

The CH was very messy before the zen event the next morning - the
expectation is that the cleanup is part of the reservation period,
including checking what other events are scheduled in the spaces.

If sleeping over then the reservation needs to include the next
morning, for all the spaces used.

Meetings continue to be 2nd Tues at 7pm and 4th Sat at 10am, with the Sat
meeting held when needed.
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