Brewery

One of the aspects of the commune that came up pretty early on in the discussion was the potential that the individual interests or hobbies of members could often be expanded slightly in scope and thus benefit the collective. This could range from gardening to musical talent to home (commune) repair or anything else at all really. My personal offering, at least right now, would be the brewery, which would serve not only to lower overall cost of beer consumption for the collective, but would also help provide exactly the level of social connectivity that is one of the goals of starting the commune in the first place. What has been fun to watch is the degree to which that has occurred simply with my own personal brew operation. I tapped my first successful batch a little over a week ago, and it's been lots of fun to be able to have people over and serve them my beer. Food or drink can almost always serve as a way to bring people together, since people need to eat and drink, so I am looking forward to an expanded brewing operation to help unite the members of the commune as well as provide a mode of outreach to the c@l.

An capitalist expansion of this idea already exists in the brewery-coffeeshop-music venue that would form an economic point of contact for the commune to the c@l and a regular stream of revenue. This could help the commune move towards a more or less self-sufficient, self-maintaining commons, something which seems at this point to be rather ideal. If this idea does take shape it would seem to point strongly towards incorporating the commune, and with formal status as a company, it would also be possible for the commune to receive outside investment as Eugene suggested were that to become advantageous. The bookkeeping would probably be rather complex, but hiring an accountant is pretty simple and would be even simpler if one were already a member.