Creating a vision

The Vision of the COHOP is to establish a collaboratively-run (wish I could say 'cooperatively run') social enterprise whose purpose is to build community according to permaculture ethics and principles in a way that is financially sustainable for its members. Pamela, maybe the Mission Statement is the place to discuss types of cohousing, or at least state what type CoHOP is about. Just an idea.

Hi Co-Hop Peers
As Jo says, the Vision of the Co-Hop has to be as broad an umbrella as possible, because we may look at other shared housing models, to facilitate folk to change their thinking around resilient finance options... so
Vision statement ideas:
1 To enable Collaborative Home Ownership within a thriving community that values financial resilience, permaculture principles and a caring egalitarian diversity.
2 To create and share a financially resilient savings and home-ownership pool/model/economy; to empower everyone/[members] access to affordable homes and sustainable caring communities.
3 To implement a financially resilient model for access to affordable community housing, based on permaculture and wholistic values - to build empowered communities/neighbourhoods of worth.
4 To create and share wealth in communities of worth.
5 Realising the full potential of universal access to affordable housing, within resilient financial values, permaculture principles and a caring egalitarian society.

What I find inspiring at the moment is the responses of other working party members above! However, to complete the exercise, here are some of my answers:
What inspires you about the CoHOP system?
It's inclusive and generates mutual respect between people of different age groups and financial means.
It is a real, achievable means of "escaping" the dominant economic paradigm of crippling debt to simply satisfy life's essentials.
Having escaped the debt trap and secured a permanent home, I hope that CoHOP members will experience greater self-respect and confidence, and find they are able to contribute in meaningful ways to their wider society.
CoHOP investors will have greater satisfaction in seeing their money being used to directly help people they know (family).

Why might we need a collaborative housing system?
Materialism, individualism and resulting social alienation are results of capitalism and its debt-based money system. Cooperatives and other collaborative enterprises are springing up to reverse these effects, especially in the areas of food production and small local businesses. Housing is the greatest single investment in most people's lives - CoHOP is a collaborative system designed to reverse the effects of capitalism on housing.

Who would benefit from CoHOP? How would they benefit?
People at the lower end of the financial spectrum would obviously benefit from CoHOP: they can avoid a mortgage, but have the security and satisfaction of owning their home. The investors, at the other end of the financial spectrum, also stand to gain from CoHOP. Their investment is more secure in the homes of people they know than in any bank or finance company; they are able to draw on their capital if they need it at any time; they can see the benefits that their money is giving to people they know; they are "paying it forward" to future generations by avoiding the loss of their community's money in mortgage interest, reducing the debt load for future generations, and saving their accumulated resources for the use of future generations.

How do we make the world a better place?
By putting accumulated resources at the disposal of families to reduce/eliminate their debt load, we free up the skills, talents, time, energy of everyone involved to build stable, closely-connected communities, which are better places to bring up children than the fragmented communities in most towns and cities at present. Successive generations will have ever more abundant, stronger resource bases and social connections.

What would a CoHOP community be like if you had the power to make it any way you wanted? To be continued.

As I was crafting a Mission Statement after reading Barbara's and Sonia's Visions, I realised that there's something else we'll have to be careful about -- home ownership. We'll just have to avoid implying that CoHOP allows you to own your own home.

Mission Statement: CoHOP will establish a cohousing community at Atamai Village based on Permaculture principles and the CoHOP financial model.

CoHOP vision draft 2
To enrol and inspire people to invest their collective savings to create collaborative and affordable housing within egalitarian, supportive communities, valuing sustainability and financially resilient local economies.

CoHOP vision Draft 3
To inspire distant and resident investors to be part owners in developing affordable housing communities based on egalitarian, socially supportive, sustainable and financially resilient principles.

Mission Draft 1
Using the CoHOP model to establish a Vibrant Cohousing community at Atamai Eco Village. Ensuring Affordable housing based on a collaborative, supportive, and A financially resilient community environment Encompassing the Atamai Village vision to live, play and work in a sustainable settlement .

Continued...
What would a CoHOP community be like if you had the power to make it any way you wanted?

The CoHOP community is the people who have chosen to join it, as investors, residents in a CoHOP building, or as observers. They may be physically separated, but are still united and inspired by our vision and the goals we set ourselves.

The CoHOP community is diverse in age, family status, financial status, work and interests. This diversity gives the community its resilience and sustainability. It also means that the community has to make a conscious effort to function harmoniously, and consensus decision-making is the means we have chosen to ensure that. Even with a proven consensus model as a foundation, the community has conflicts to resolve from time to time. Our shared vision, and explicit commitment to the community, are the "glue" that holds the group together, and also gives it strength. Individuals gain in self-awareness as they learn to work together for the benefit of all.

In the modern world, people complain of isolation and lonliness, and long for a true community where they feel a sense of belonging and purpose. The CoHOP community provides those values that are so fundamental to a healthy human life.

What will CoHOP be known for in ten years' time?

CoHOP will be recognised as an effective tool for helping to build successful intentional communities.

CoHOP Vision (draft)

Village CoHOP is a diverse, egalitarian community sharing human, natural and financial resources to provide a secure home for every member, and a model of sustainable, affordable housing for all New Zealanders.

Mission Statements - key words.

collaboration; sharing

home ownership; security; well-being, health

natural diversity; sustainability; Permaculture;

human diversity; talent, skills, knowledge;

financial security; abundance; (debt-free); affordable; investment

Suggested statements

Village CoHOP's Mission is:
Design and build comfortable shared- and co-housing homes at Atamai Eco Village, to the standards specified in Atamai Building Guidelines, and under the covenants attached to all dwellings in Atamai Eco Village.

Use the Collaborative Home Ownership Programme (CoHOP) to finance the shared- and co-housing at Atamai Eco Village, and provide secure ownership rights and investments to all members regardless of the value of their financial contribution.

Make the CoHOP system and the Atamai shared- and co-housing model available on "open source" media, to encourage Permaculture, sustainability and affordable housing throughout NZ.

For other uses, see Collaboration (disambiguation).
See also: Co-operation; coordination
Collaboration is working with others to do a task and to achieve shared goals.[1] It is a recursive[2] process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, (this is more than the intersection of common goals seen in co-operative ventures, but a deep, collective determination to reach an identical objective) — for example, an endeavor[3][4] that is creative in nature[5]—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. Most collaboration requires leadership, although the form of leadership can be social within a decentralized and egalitarian group.[6] In particular, teams that work collaboratively can obtain greater resources, recognition and reward when facing competition for finite resources.[7] Collaboration is also present in opposing goals exhibiting the notion of adversarial collaboration, though this is not a common case for using the word. (from Wikipedia)