Memphis Democrat
February 16, 2009

Tony here with the Dancing Rabbit weekly news and views. This week was again dominated by our annual retreat. We spent our second weekend in a row in meetings and many are certainly glad that we are done. The weather was a little more cooperative this weekend by being not nearly so nice, which made it much more bearable to sit indoors all day.

We focused our attention on such topics as our membership process, where we agreed to some significant changes. We also checked in our expectations of labor contributions from members (AKA Dues Hours as opposed to dues paid with money). We didn't get final agreement on the new policy but the mood was generally positive and it seemed like a clear direction was emerging.

We also went through our annual task of finding people to take on tasks and fill committees. Trying to cover everything from Fence Maintenance to Conflict Resolution Team can be quite a dance but we did fairly well at getting it mostly covered. There was good news for our auto-shop in Rutledge -- we still have not found someone to take on maintaining our three vehicles which generally means more time in the shop. I guess its just hard finding Ecovillagers who want to work on cars (we don't have the same problem with our bike fleet!).

We also continued our process of setting our goals and priorities for the year. We made good progress but hit a roadblock when it became clear that key tasks needed attention from people who were already maxed out. We'll no doubt be strategizing on how to clear that roadblock in the coming weeks and I trust our creativity will find a way.

To help with the retreat we brought in an outside facilitator to preside over our consensus process for the weekend. Marjorie Wholey joined us from Casa Verde Commons, a cohousing community in Colorado Springs. Thanks Marjorie for keeping us on track and focused.

Also offering a heroic helping hand was Sarah from St. Louis who helped with childcare both weekends. The kids certainly kept her busy and I think she was as glad to see the end of the retreat as those in the meetings. We also got help from Renay at Sandhill and Alyson from Red Earth Farms. Thanks friends and neighbors for keeping our kids amused and out of trouble.

Luckily it wasn't all meetings all the time. There was time on Friday night for a sing-a-long with Meadow playing guitar for us. The one or two inches of snow we got was just enough for folks to go out for a sledding party and for the kids to make some snow sculptures and some frozen projectiles. There was even a game of capture the flag and another jump in the pond. I'm told that it was colder than last week even though the pond is no longer frozen. I guess its more fun to jump in 32 degree water on a 60 degree day than 33 degree water on a 40 degree day.

We were also touched by tragedy this week as Tamar's aunt was killed in a plane crash. Susan Wehle, the cantor at her local Synagogue, died with 49 others when Flight 3407 crashed near Buffalo last Thursday. Tamar has already left for Buffalo for the funeral and our hearts go with her and out to all those who lost loved ones in the crash.

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