Monan’s Rill’s Core Values are: Honoring Every Voice, Caring for Each Other, Stewardship, and Stability.
These values are held in common by the entire Community and help guide our community life, communication, and decision-making process. Monan’s Rill’s Core Values also let others know who we are and what is important to us as a Community.
Our Core Community Values reflect care for the individuals within the Community, for our land and infrastructure, and for the greater world of which our Community is a part.
We share an experience of rootedness, feeling both deeply connected to the land and belonging to the group.
Honoring Every Voice
Monan’s Rill honors the long tradition of Quaker consensus practice – taking the time to work towards understanding each other’s perspectives, encouraging those with minority opinions to speak up, and listening for intuition and emotion as well as for information. We seek the collective wisdom of the group, recognizing that each member’s perspective is important and needed in order to understand “the whole story.” We acknowledge and honor differences, and aim to create better solutions by exploring differences and disagreement when they arise. In order to create a culture of safety and respect in which everyone feels heard and understood, we attempt to honestly address power dynamics through good communication and facilitation skills. We continually seek to improve our communication and decision-making processes.
Caring for Each Other
We place a high value on the quality of our relationships and our communication. We work to build trust, empathy and acceptance of one another and a safe environment in which to live. We seek ways to support and celebrate each other, in both our personal needs and pursuits, and in our community life. We try to assume the best in each other. We work on clearing conflicts directly in a timely manner and practicing forgiveness. We aim to respect personal boundaries and strive to be responsible and accountable to each other.
Stewardship
We feel deeply connected to this land where we live. We view ourselves as caretakers of our land for both current and future generations, using our own knowledge and experience and educating ourselves about current best practices. We recognize our connections to the greater watershed community and to the world at large, and seek to make responsible decisions about air, water, land, climate quality, and the use of energy. We recognize that stewardship also includes caring for the buildings and other physical infrastructure of our Community, monitoring and maintaining them so they are functional and durable.
Stability
Monan’s Rill’s agreements and practices, created through careful deliberation, are intended to be fair to present and future Members, as well as to the Community as a whole. We strive to foster trust and expect long-term investment in our relationships and our Community.
We recognize that long-term stability requires creatively balancing the tensions created by competing needs. Two examples of competing needs are: honoring the past and being open to change; and balancing our Community commitments and our personal lives. We strive to make our agreements clear and flexible to address all these needs.
We hold in equal regard financial commitments made by the Community to Members, and those made by Members to the Community. We rely on each Member’s integrity to follow through with one another and with Community agreements and obligations.