Governance

Columbia Ecovillage is legally structured as a self-managed condominium. We have about eight committees that assist Board members in managing the community, business and governance aspects of the community.  It takes a Village of workers to keep us self- managed. The range of tasks we do is broad, from tending compost and the gardens, cooking meals, cleaning the interior of our common buildings, bookkeeping, and being on the Board and committees.

Participation

We take great pride in our beautiful acreage and the abundance of wonderful food we produce on it. We share the work it takes to keep our gardens and buildings in good shape, including maintenance of our shared facilities: a 1912 farmhouse; new Common Hall used for meals, meetings, parties, yoga and more; a laundry room; crafts room; workshop; tool shed; and storage building.  

The land takes more work in spring and summer, but there are land tasks year-round, from chopping wood and tending the wood-burning stove that heats our Common Hall to pruning fruit trees and many rows of berries and grapes. Saturday morning “work parties” are a hive of activity especially in spring and summer—weeding, planting, watering, harvesting. Speaking of hives, we’ve got bees and beekeepers. We grow a lot of food and preserve food, too, for our community meals. We aim to have about two meals or pot lucks per week that people can sign up for, the meals are prepared by skilled cooks and cook assistants, and made possible by our meal cleaners as well as our gardeners.

The bonding we experience while working together is an important part of our community's culture. "Work parties" on Saturday mornings usually include a coffee hour or lunch. Quarterly work parties are designed to get more and bigger outdoor and indoor jobs done. 

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