Member's parents may own a house and can share some of their experience. Or perhaps there is someone in the group that is knowledgeable about housing development. Proactive steps should be taken to empower student groups in this often unexplored area. There may be real estate courses offered at the local community college. Or, if a group member does know something about housing, efforts should be taken to share the knowledge through workshops or discussion.
Discussion is usually the best means for empowering student groups.
An effective educational format is to make copies of one chapter of the Handbook , distribute them to everyone in the group, read it, and discuss. This process does not lead to mastery, but gets groups thinking and acting. The final subject in group self-education is the student cooperative movement. Student cooperatives have their own breed of special rules and quirks that make them interesting for both the participant and the observer. Knowing which aspects of other student cooperatives make sense to the group is useful during the process of creating a collective vision and system of operations.