Morning all.

As one of the trio who showed a red card in response to the straw poll around legal representation, it was suggested that we send something ahead of the meeting about our reasons for this. ( I’m also interested in hearing from those who registered Orange cards about their serious reservations).

I’ll do my best to be brief.

1. I’m assuming that all those who’ve registered an opinion about our legal representation have read the summary column put together by Alex. It’s my observation that as a group, we may be looking at the same set of ‘facts and opinions’ but we are ‘weighing’ this information differently.

Eg while it is interesting to learn more about our former lawyer’s role in managing complex individual property purchases in the past, to my mind, that has little bearing on our current situation: that all 24 transfers of money to the bank along with titles to be issued, covenants applied, etc  for a brand new development need to be completed at the same time in order for us to discharge our obligations to Kiwi bank and be able to move in to High Street cohousing. Any delays or muddles around these processes have significant implications for us all: for one thing, we have all signed a contract with Kiwibank that we are responsible for our own loans and that of the rest of us to the amount that Kiwibank has agreed to lend.

On the scale of ‘Stressful life events’, moving house is right up there. A number of us will be timing the sale of our properties to hopefully line up with the move in date; others are already renting. Any delays have significant financial implications for us as a group. Some of you may be able to cover an additional $20K plus were that required – we are not in that happy position. And none of us need to be put under that stress if this transaction is handled efficiently, accurately and to time.

Which brings me to the matter of the resources required by whatever law firm manages this complex transaction. This is not a ‘one person’ job. It is going to require the dedicated attention of a small team over days and possibly weeks to have this all lined up and ready to go. In my view, we need to allow for the predictably unpredictable; staff illness/ absence for what ever reason. Again, a ‘one or two person’ operation doesn’t provide that. As shareholders, we have a responsibility to act cautiously for the good of us all.

2. Irrespective of capacity and past performance, in this sort of matter, I want to know I can rely on the judgement of the person representing my interests. While we can all make mistakes, and hopefully learn from these, when errors of judgement occur, and especially recur, it makes me pause. Many things can affect cognitive capacity, as my aging brain is only too aware.

Again, in my view, it behooves us to be cautious. There is no satisfaction in ‘ I told you so’, as we, along with the rest of you, face expensive delays and additional fees due to factors we considered and decided to set aside.  Again, as shareholders, we have a responsibility to act cautiously for the good of us all.

Several people registered Orange cards in response to the recent straw poll. I would like to hear more about their serious reservations too.

3. My third issue relates to the process around the discussion about legal representation.

In my opinion, this discussion has become embroiled in a confusing mix of loyalty conflicts, muddles around roles, and proposals that reflect a wish to either reward one party or punish another ( neither of whom are shareholders in this project).

Directors have a responsibility to shareholders and need to act with the best interests of that whole group in mind. I’ve already spelled out something of our obligations to one another that are set out in the Kiwibank contract.

Over this process, most of us have experienced considerable discomfort, wondering what we got ourselves into. People have used words like ‘manipulated’;’ furious’; ‘too embarrassed to talk about this with family, knowing what they would say’ etc etc. Discussions ( Lobbying?) have gone on by phone or over coffee cups with some, while requests to meet to talk through differences with others have been declined. This is not how the kaupapa of co-housing was presented to me and I expect it is not the picture attendees at our most recent induction work shop were given either.

We need to be willing to walk our talk.

Quite a bit of this has bought to mind the book ‘Emotional Blackmail: when people in your life use fear, obligation and guilt to manipulate you’. The author describes how a fear of others anger (or our own) can produce what she describes as a ‘FOG’ made up of fear, obligation and guilt that muddles our thinking, makes it hard to focus on the facts and interferes with good decision making. If we can’t see conflict as ‘growth trying to happen’, we can instead fall into a pattern of shutting it down at all costs, or agreeing with anything to make it go away, and then paying the price inside ourselves for acting against what we knew to be in our best interests and/ or those of the group.

I’m hopeful that as a group, we’ll get through this issue in a sane way, and that we’ll use this experience to help us build our resources for other issues that we’ll face together down the track.

Best wishes and see you on Thursday –

Marianne.

Marianne Quinn

Level 3, 115 Stuart Street, Dunedin

P.O. Box 20, Dunedin 9054

ph +6434773115 or 0211612050