A: To help us plan, please fill out the Membership Interest Form, which includes survey questions about various aspects of the project that would be useful and exciting to you, price points, timelines, etc. If you're excited enough that you want to join as a member when we launch, please email us or schedule a call so we can arrange a conversation where we learn more about each other.
A: There will be children at CoDwell. How their presence will be structured is an open question; organizing and implementing a plan would be up to some of the families who want to move in. This could be a whole pod based on co-parenting and home schooling, and/or families could exist across all pods with the organizing roles being separate from pod responsibilities. The people responsible for organizing the presence of children in the community would also have a voice in community planning, with regards to things like safety precautions, scheduling and child-free zones, etc.
There will be places and times at CoDwell that are not traditionally, or in some cases ever, child-safe, both physically and mentally. We plan to have a large kitchen where it would be inappropriate to leave an unattended toddler. We plan to secure the most dangerous tools in the wood shop, but we can't stop a determined tween from breaking in and hurting themselves. We plan to host events with alcohol or adult activities, at least as secure from children as the same event would be in a typical home and neighborhood. These and many other situations will still require you to engage in responsible parenting, just like anywhere else.
A: There will be pets and service animals at CoDwell. We expect to have some indoor and outdoor space set aside as explicitly animal-friendly, such as a building or floor for pet owners and outdoor corrals or runs. Some areas will be off limits to some or all animals. These decisions and policies will be driven by needs of the organization and members.
A: First and foremost, you need to be passionate about the focus of the pod, the shared interest or passion that the pod members will join to be part of and collaborate on. Next, you need to be willing and able to do organization and leadership of your pod. You will be responsible for ensuring that your pod members are fulfilling the responsibilities that your pod has committed to the organization.
A: The Laurelwood Academy property is a good fit for our plans, more so than most other small schools which tend to have the necessary amenities in general. It checks off every box on our list and then some. Enough bedrooms for 3-8 pods of 5-20 people, check. Enough functional space (shop, classroom, studio, office, ...) for those people to do anything they dream of, check. Existing large garden, check. Natural water source, check. Enough land for outdoor events and/or agricultural use, check. Convenient driving distance to a major city, check. Some buildings in great shape for us to use immediately, check. Some buildings ready for renovation to adapt as we wish, check. Some trees, but not enough to be at critical risk in future wildfires, check. Location that will still be habitable after 30 more years of climate change, check.
A: Our prospective budget calls for one full-time employee as a Facilities Manager. Their responsibilities will be to coordinate all repairs and maintenance, as well as to work with the organization to make plans regarding upgrades and build-out. To accomplish this, they will have a few resources at their disposal:
They will be hired based on their skill with general maintenance tasks and their ability to directly address smaller concerns like kitchen plumbing leaks, light switch and fixture problems, etc. Think of this like the handyman for an apartment complex or school.
They will have a maintenance budget, likely around $10,000 per month based on maintenance records from a comparable property. This could be used to purchase materials and hire licensed contractors for larger and more specialized tasks. Think of this like an office facility manager.
They will have access to some amount of unskilled communal labor, from the same pool used for garden work, meal preparation, etc, provided by all of the members as part of their obligation to their pod and their pod's obligation to the community as a whole. Think of this like a foreperson, and the members' contributions as chores.
They will direct some skilled labor provided by the maker/build pod, such as carpentry and electrical work, and the garden pod, such as landscaping work. This will be part of those specific pods' contributions to the organization.
A: In addition to the facilities manager we are budgeting at least two other full time staff roles, and strong preference will be given to resident members to fill these roles. The precise distribution of responsibilities to these roles will depend on the skills of the people we find to fill them. At this time we are tentatively calling them the Community Manager and the Bookkeeper. The former will deal with membership applications, organizing candidate interviews, coordinating pod relations, handling or outsourcing conflict resolution, etc. The latter will deal with finances and accounting, vendors, budgeting, relations with the investors and lenders, etc.
Depending on how the communities develop, upkeep of the common areas of the property could be part of member chores, fulfilling their obligation to their pod and the community as a whole, or this could be multiple paid roles, probably part time. This would involve mowing, shoveling, raking outside, and cleaning inside.
A: In early 2024 we had grown the Estate of Mind project to approximately 20 residents with a focus on creative collaboration. Our art and shop spaces were in regular and increasing use, with more features every month. Our weekly community activities and other events were drawing an increasing number of people. By most metrics, the project was on the way to success, with bumps along the way in the form of counterproductive resident members. On March 1, 2021, the morning of what was expected to be our largest community activity event ever (200+ people), a house fire struck the historic Whitin Lasell Manor. No lives were lost, but seven members lost their bedrooms and most to all of their belongings, and the building became unusable. We spent the next few months trying to keep the community going in the remaining buildings, but things spiraled downhill and the community dissolved. Most residents moved out to other opportunities. A few squatters remain as of this writing and that chapter of the story is ongoing.