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The co-op life is essentially about participation. People who live in a cooperative (members), organize themselves and do some of the work on their own.
Normally, you would expect majority of the maintenance work to be financed from the maintenance fee and performed by professionals. Co-ops operate more in the style of house owners but in a collective fashion. We try to do landscaping, major cleaning, repairs and administration ourselves as much as we can, not only for the purpose of saving money, but also for fun. However, where there is a lack of expertise or when a task is better suited for the work of professionals, we contract them.
In order to organize their work, members group themselves in committees. Each committee is responsible for a specific group of tasks. Therefore we have committees that take care of maintenance, landscaping, financial things, ... all the stuff strata normally does for you for a fee. One thing you do not normally find in condominium housing though, is taking care of social events ... and you do miss a lot sometimes if you are not in the co-op.
By learning to work together, we get to know each other better, and there are no strangers among us. Consequently, we like to gather both for formal and for informal purposes.
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