Seth Mansur

We are a group that has been forming for some time now. Many of the members have been looking into community living for several years, and for the past 12 months we have become quite focused and we are excited to announce our goal of launching our community in late spring/summer of 2015. We are looking for additional people interested in joining us. Please email our group: [email protected] to learn more about our group and join our next planning session (right now meetings are once a month, and will likely move to closer intervals the closer we get to launching our community!)

Here is a quick overview of the vision/philosophy of our community:

Fun!
Everyone wants more enjoyment in life, from physical activities individually and together to crafts and art

Advancement of society:
• Achieve personal freedom to explore what we truly are interested it, cultivating an enriched life
• Education – lots of ideas here! After school programs, home school network, day long/week long/semester long programs similar to the Yestermorrow organization in Vermont
• Agri-tourism – great for building our immediate community’s culture around seasonal events, opportunity to connect with greater community. Can provide $$$ while developing community to be more resilient and independent of the $$$ culture (our own currency would be sweet, or plug into a regional currency like the berkshare)
• Permaculture/agriculture – as a means of growing as many yields (food, fiber, famraceuticals, fodder, fuel, fun!!!) for our needs as possible, and to sell too
• Mix of internal micro enterprises (bed and breakfast, logging, crafts, beer brewing, rental housing) within the community and external income. Moving toward more internal resilience is the goal, but recognizing current pension/job requirements in the near term is important.
• Utilize a “scientific” approach to developing our community. There are tons of resources and experiences to pull from, lets only reinvent the wheels we want to and “copy” as much as possible to not make unnecessary or avoidable mistakes.
• Have a spiritual element to the community for people to continue practicing and/or explore new ways of thinking.
• Develop the ability to assist others in need, from single mothers to veterans
• Embrace and encourage multi-generational living to support needs/wants across the age spectrum. Our abilities change throughout the course of our lives and it would be wonderful to have a community to support each other. From short-term colds to longer term elder care; we all need help at some point.
Structures:
• To get things going, buying a piece of land with an existing farmhouse and barn seems to make a lot of sense. As people build their homes on the property they can live in the house temporarily
• The common area ideas are:
o Some type of large common area with flexible room use (meetings, yoga, meditation, workshops, etc)
o Community kitchen
o Handicap accessible
o 4-5+ shared meals weekly
o Play spaces for children, covered pavilion
o Workshop
• Individual living spaces:
o Environmentally friendly building practices: straw bale, tiny home, etc

Location:
• This connects a lot to the timing people have.
• Either central mass or western mass seems ideal due to members’ current job obligations
• Close to a Waldorf school. Harts brook school in Hadley or Oxbow House in Devens are the closest options.
• Maine and Vermont have been spoken about, some members do not want to move that far.
• Considerations for location: staying close to existing family/friend networks and paying jobs.

Community Structure/Governance
• Need to research how other communities have put their intentions into a formal agreement

Timeline
• Most want to make a move towards community in spring/summer of 2015
• Clarification around where we are going and how much money people will need to contribute will be needed.
o Would it be possible to have different initial financial contributions? How can we structure the ownership to reflect the different levels of contribution?
• Before September 2015 a decision will need to be made for the people in the group with kids or working in schools