Staff Spotlight: Ashleigh Hughes

GreenRise Business Liaison and Intentional Community resident Ashleigh Hughes.

My personal understanding of intentional is bringing full awareness and presence to a particular activity. That can lead to being mindful about your carbon footprint, but also more broadly how what you do either directly or indirectly affects your neighbor. That's probably the biggest opportunity to feel empowered to take the right steps to make life as harmonious as possible.

Ashleigh Hughes joined the ICA team as GreenRise Business Liaison in March, 2020. She has been a resident of the GreenRise Intentional Community since June, 2019. As both staff and resident, she helps recruit new members, resolve conflict, and cultivate a positive and intentional community.

What is your role in the organization?

My role is to be the point of communication between ICA and members within the residential Intentional Community at ICA GreenRise. As both a staff member and resident of the community, serve on the new member committee and initiate the conversation with new member prospects by introducing them to the community and the membership process.

How did you first encounter ICA?

As a new mom I was looking for a place to settle down in Chicago so I could be close by to my co-parent. A friend recommended I find a community to live in, so I did a little research and found the Foundation for Intentional Community, which helped me to understand the different options, such as intentional living and cohousing. I considered three different communities in Chicago, including Stone Soup, before ultimately selecting ICA GreenRise.

When I first arrived I was anticipating a more cohesive, one-minded type of group. I found that from person to person the definition of intentional is different, and we all have our own idea about what intentional life is. That's a question we're all asking ourselves right now. 

How did you come to work at ICA?

It was a pretty synchronistic conversation because I was looking for a more stable job so I could continue to live in Chicago. During my job search, I got a phone call from Sharon Rafos, who was the previous liaison between ICA and the Intentional Community. She told me I was the first person that came to mind when she made the decision to retire. I was just so grateful, I hadn't even known that I had made that impression on her!

What keeps you motivated in your role?

The community is still working to figure out what our shared intention is, which is both frustrating and inspiring. But we all went through a strategic planning process back in April, things have been sort of rolling in the right direction. We have more of a process in place to figure out pressing matters and reach some sort of a resolution on them.

We had a few workshops where we addressed our concerns and our values and how we wanted to approach everything going forward. And we created a bunch of teams. There are teams for event planning, conflict resolution, and creating community guidelines for decision-making. There is also a storytelling committee, which creates a space for people to share their life stories within our monthly meetings, which has been a good way to establish who we all are individually and create more opportunity for connection. And finally, there is a sustainability committee that is in a research phase where they're trying to introduce composting and other ways to reduce and reuse as much as possible.

I've been feeling really inspired through the conflict resolution team to figure out a way to provide a space so we can have difficult conversations. I created a server on Discord with different text channels to discuss openly different topics that are urgent or that we’re all generally interested in. I hope it can be a way for people to share their entire thoughts and get them out in the open so we can process them. Hopefully it also feeds into our guidelines committee, where we are processing discussions before bringing them to monthly meetings and making decisions.

I’ve also been engaged in the new members committee, which is responsible for finding prospects for new members and honing in on what our intention is as a community so that we can attract the right people. I created a survey which I sent to everyone in the community on the subject of intentional life.

What is your personal definition of intentional?

My personal understanding of intentional is bringing full awareness and presence to a particular activity. That can lead to being mindful about your carbon footprint, but also more broadly how what you do either directly or indirectly affects your neighbor. That's probably the biggest opportunity to feel empowered to take the right steps to make life as harmonious as possible.

What part of the organization would you like to learn more about?

I have always had a curiosity about the Technology of Participation (ToP) methods. I know that we’re using them now within the community as part of the strategic planning process, and I wonder why we haven’t been using them more. I'd also like to know more about the impact that ICAs have around the world.