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Middlesex Senior Cohousing -- Building the first senior cohousing community in New England!
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"Nothing is so beautiful as Spring"
(Gerard Manley Hopkins)
Greetings!
Remember when you were a spring chicken? Well, here's a story about a spring egg.
Long ago a poor, starving hare spied an egg lying in the grass. His heart leapt up. But just as he was about to pop it into his mouth, he remembered: it was the feast day of Eostre, the goddess of spring. Everyone would be taking her gifts, but all he had was the egg. So, he went home, decorated the egg with beautiful flowers, and took it to the goddess. She rewarded his selflessness by bringing him to live with her (some say they became lovers!). And she gave him a job: to decorate eggs for children the world over, every spring.
April is bursting with new beginnings. That's why we're including a video in this newsletter about New Ground Cohousing, the first women’s senior cohousing in the world (completed in 2016 in London). We love the woman named Janet in the film, who, when asked about her experience of moving in, exclaims, “I feel like I’ve been reborn!”
Amen, sister! Because that's how we feel, and we haven't even co-located yet. We're at the end of long careers, our kids mostly grown and gone. We're watching old friends and neighbors move away, or worse. And the sense of purpose we had for years may be dwindling.
But then a new beginning -- we start this amazing journey to build the first senior cohousing community in New England. Not only are we going to build ideal homes for aging in place, but we're also creating--now, already, as we work together--the kind of caring, next-door community that we need to thrive, right to the end. So, is this the autumn of our lives? Au contraire. It feels like spring.
Here's a snapshot of our April newsletter:
- Next Information Meeting: Sunday, May 19 in Acton, MA
- Update on Our Project -- We're Percolating
- Senior Cohousing in the News -- New Ground in London
- National Cohousing Open House Day - Saturday, April 27
Yours in community,
Victoria & Mayhew
Co-founders
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Upcoming Information Meeting
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Senior Cohousing:
A
Community
Approach to Aging in Place
Sunday, May 19, 2019
2:00 pm - 4:30 pm
New View Cohousing
25 Half Moon Hill off Central St, West Acton
Middlesex Senior Cohousing invites you to come
learn about senior cohousing -- and our project to build the first senior cohousing neighborhood in New England!
Senior cohousing is an innovative model that started in Denmark and operates on the understanding that
community
is the best insurance for having a fun and fulfilling 3
rd
Act!
And
getting the nurturing care we need as we age.
Program features a slideshow, video, Q&A, and facilitated break-out groups.
We're looking for new members!
Find out how joining early gets you seniority in home selection and a discount on your home price!
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We're Percolating!
Site Search Is Heating Up
We're looking at two properties right now, one in Maynard and one in Littleton. Littleton is of particular interest because of its progressive new senior overlay zoning district. This theoretically lowers the zoning barrier for a multi-family senior development like ours. Perhaps the biggest challenge to our project is surmounting the steep zoning barriers that towns have put in place for restricting multi-family housing developments like ours. Regressive zoning, in a word, is the reason we have a housing crisis in Massachusetts and elsewhere.
Membership Is Growing
One more household joined us this month at the Explorer level, bringing the total number of participating households to 16, and our mailing list now exceeds 700 names.
Sociocracy - It's a Learning Curve
We ran our third six-week training for several of our Explorer households. They not only got a good introduction to sociocracy, but they reportedly had a jolly good time and got personally more connected. It was smiles and thumbs up all around.
Big Turnouts at Our Events
Our Info Sessions, astonishingly, are averaging 20 - 50 attendees per month. This is exceptional for a forming cohousing group like us. So much so that a couple of national leaders have contacted us to ask, "What's your secret sauce?" We say: Baby Boomers are open to innovative ideas, and they get the importance of community. They're looking for better senior housing options than their parents had. And we've got a great one.
Our follow-up potluck parties, held at New View Cohousing in Acton, attract 6 - 10 guests each month in addition to 20 or so of us. We organize these festive meals as a social event for us; but we also invite people who have attended any of our Info Sessions. It's a chance for guests to continue the conversation with us, and for us all to get to know each other better over food and wine. After all:
A tavola non s'invecchia!
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Senior Cohousing in the News
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New Ground
Older Women's Cohousing
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This innovative project is the result of 19 years of planning and is a purpose-built development of 25 flats for women over 50 with communal areas and mutual support. It has been created as an alternative to living alone and often in unsuitably large properties. As well as providing an ideal living environment, it also allows family homes to be released back to the market, rather than remaining in the hands of an increasingly ageing population. Not surprisingly older people can be reluctant to move out of their homes because of the lack of attractive alternatives.
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Calendar of Spring Events
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Don't miss it!
National Cohousing Open House Day on Saturday, April 27!
This annual event is a great opportunity to walk around a cohousing neighborhood, peek into the residences, and ask questions.
Over the past couple of years, we've visited most of the cohousing developments in Massachusetts. This year, some of us are driving south to Bethany, CT, to visit Rocky Corner Cohousing, just north of New Haven. Their site is a former dairy farm, and they are in construction right now. We're excited by their agricultural vision, and the fact that like us, they are implementing sociocracy. We look forward to seeing their land and learning about their challenges and successes.
In the Boston area, you can visit these three communities on April 27:
Cambridge Cohousing
Cornerstone Village Cohousing
Jamaica Plain Cohousing
For more information, go to the Cohousing Association of the USA website by clicking the link below:
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About Middlesex Senior Cohousing
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We are 16 households from Metro West Boston aiming to build the first senior cohousing neighborhood in New England. We're looking for land in seven towns in Metro Northwest Boston on which to build a collaboratively designed, self-managed neighborhood of 20 - 30 privately-owned, clustered, energy-efficient, cottage-style homes (duplexes and triplexes). There will be abundant open space, gardens and a large outdoor commons. Also a large common house built to high energy efficiency standards with extensive amenities, including guest suites and a large kitchen and great room for community meals, dancing and celebrations. Other amenities may include spaces for woodworking, arts and crafts, offices, and yoga/exercise.
We're Looking for New Members!
Go to our website (below) to learn more. And take our
Survey of Interest
to find out if our future neighborhood might be just what you're looking for.
Learn about cohousing at the Cohousing Association of America
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