Manley Co-op and the Mop Slap

Front porch swing at Manley

Ah, what a joy it was to be at a co-op. Even with most of its members out of town for spring break, the Manley house posse graciously took us in and shared stories and laughs with us.
After our informative and beautiful time that was spent at L.A. ecovillage, the crew was even more pumped to visit another community.

Jeff, the executive director, immediately gave us the guest room to store our loads of belongings, and without a hitch we began a tour of all 4 houses under the Santa Barbara Student Housing Co-ops. Each house is as diverse as their members from Biko House with its “people of color” themed house to Dashain, the most “co-opy” of all the coops (dubbed the House of Seitan).


The time in Santa Barbara was encompassed by an interview with Jeff, who’s time spent on the board at the Madison coops and coops in Costa Rica prepped him for the massive responsibility that is SBSHC as executive director.

Jeff Bessmer, Sara, and Joe take a break during our tour

The most fun I had was when we sat down with the few members who stuck around at Manley, and shared coop traditions with one another. Nothing like sharing the infamous mop slap technique (courtesy of 21st Street Co-op in Austin) that is used quite often on coopers deemed “uncooperative” (hey, it’s better than getting kicked out or fined). Let’s hope that we didn’t influence any policy changes at Manley House.

-Ivy

http://sbcoop.org/?q=node/23