In order to present our best selves to our guests over the opening weekend we need help from the cohousing community with the following tasks. Unless specifically stated these tasks can be done at any point leading up to the opening weekend, and we would be delighted, if people feel that they can take up a specific task, to put their name beside it in an email to the Outreach Group (Anthony, Anne, Kristin, Gay, Claire, Rosemarie and Jess).

Personnel

-        We ask for volunteers to drop invites into the neighbours’ letterboxes on the streets surrounding Toiora. Rosemarie will deliver some to people she knows personally.

-        This may be obvious but we would love anyone who is free and willing to come along to the formal opening at 2pm on the Friday – a strong cohousing presence would be fantastic

-        Anne is going to put up a roster in the commonhouse for people to sign themselves on for an hour of mingling and chatting with the neighbours on the Saturday afternoon. This would be committing you to spend an hour (or more if you choose!) in the commonhouse during the afternoon to strike up conversations with guests and help them feel welcome. 

-     We think providing sticky labels as an option for people to write their name and wear during the neighbours' afternoon might be helpful/ welcoming. These will need to be bought and provided alongside pens

-        The waiata will be sent as a separate email and we ask that cohousers commit to learning it for the formal opening. This will be sung in response to the greeting and blessing from the Runaka and is one way we can show them how grateful we are to their gift of the name Toiora to us, and their continued willingness to be involved with us. After the shared meals there will be practices of this waiata so that we can all sing with confidence at the opening.

 

Catering

-        We ask the Kitchen Group to clean and stack the cups and plates and have them ready for the Friday afternoon. After the event they will once more need to be cleaned and stacked for the neighbours afternoon the following day

-        We ask for any big-sized coffee plungers for use over the Friday and Saturday. Jess has been lent three from her church to get us started. They have also lent us an urn.

-        On the Friday the Outreach Group will purchase 2x savoury packs and 2x slab cakes from Frozen Direct for the Friday afternoon, with anything left over for use on the Saturday.

-        We ask cohousers to each provide a small plate of finger food/baking for the neighbours afternoon on the Saturday.

-        We ask that cohousers help with the tidying up/ transition between the neighbours afternoon and the shared meal

Presentation of the commonhouse

-        There will be a working bee the morning of the Friday to do a general tidy up

-        We ask the Commonhouse Group to please remove all unwanted items from the commonhouse

-        If someone knows about where the wooden 3D model of the development is and how to access it, we thought it would be great to have on display. Along these lines also, if the posters that were on the walls of the old meeting space of the development plans are still available we would love those too

-        We ask the Heritage Fence Group to see if they can create a poster/ information sheet about what progress has been made on the heritage fence, what the next steps are and how the neighbourhood can help out if they so wish

-        We ask the Signs Group to see if they can have the entrance signs ready (we realise this may not be possible, but would be interested in seeing if it could be)

-        We would like to see if we can display the old ‘High Street School’ filigree sign and the ‘nau mai haere mai’ signs nicely. If anyone has any ideas about how best to do this, please let the Outreach Group know.

-        We would like to have some posters on the wall about what cohousing is, and if anyone who has a summary they have used in a presentation feels happy to share what they have, please pass this on to the Outreach Group. Information will need to be printed and displayed around the room.

-        Anne is going to look for some of the historical information/ documents we have about the school and grounds, but if anyone has anything of this nature they can share please let her know/ offer your help to organise and display it

-        Gay has lots of pots that can be displayed nicely at the commonhouse Montpellier entrance to brighten up that space. If you have a spare moment when you’re walking around, these just need to be moved from Gay’s space to the common entrance

-        Sander: we would love to have the projector up and ready to use and have a slideshow of photos/ information. What do you need to get the projector up on the wall and working? 

Many thanks to everyone for your help with this!

Anthony, Anne, Gay, Claire, Kristin, Rosemarie and Jess