Gardens of Gratitude – LA’s Westside Permies Roll Out Gardens Across the City
Community Projects, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Sean Jennings October 16, 2010
by Sean Jennings, Los Angeles
Can you imagine cruising the streets of your neighborhood planting edible gardens with your friends? How about planting edible gardens in yards across your entire local community with hundreds of friends? Neighbors in the streets of Los Angeles have done just that.
Comments (3)Cecilia Macaulay at the 10th Australasian Permaculture Convergence
Conferences, Social Gatherings — by Patrick Blampied October 14, 2010
I had the honour of presenting the Worldwide Permaculture Network people and projects database to the 10th Australasian Permaculture Convergence (APC 10) with Geoff Lawton. During the breaks, coffee and cookie in hand, I met some really wonderful people.
I’d heard about the work of many of these people and felt like I already knew some of them yet I still didn’t know their story.
So in keeping with the theme of the people and projects database, I made a few films asking some of the people I met who they were and what their permaculture story was. Meet Cecilia Macaulay.
Fair Share Festival, Newcastle, NSW, Australia
Alternatives to Political Systems, Bio-regional Organisations, Community Projects, Conferences, Courses/Workshops, Economics, Networking Sites, People Systems, Presentations/Demonstrations, Social Gatherings, Society, Village Development, peak oil — by Tom Toogood October 13, 2010
Editor’s Note: I would recommend people in Australia get behind this, and people everywhere could consider how to organise your own festival in your respective states. Getting transition discussions into the lenses and microphones of mainstream media is an urgent need.
What: Natural and Economic Solutions to the Global Financial Crisis
Where: Hamilton Public School, Newcastle, NSW, Australia
When: Friday night 22nd October (6pm to 9pm) and Saturday 23rd October, 2010 (9am to 9pm)
Why: Isn’t it obvious?
Newcastle is hosting a unique and timely event, Australia’s first Fair Share Festival, focussed on urgent economic and social justice issues and sustainable solutions. It’s planned to run at Hamilton Public School hall, grounds and Permaculture garden between 22-23 October (Friday and Saturday).
It is produced by Permaculture Hunter Region (PHR), the Permaculture Research Institute (PRI), Transition Town Newcastle and Unions NSW.
Comments (1)Your Input Wanted – Guidelines for Worldwide Permaculture Network Users
Aid Projects, Alternatives to Political Systems, Bio-regional Organisations, Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Education Centres, Networking Sites, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor
I know some of you are itching to use the new Worldwide Permaculture Network system. Well, I hope to launch in just a few weeks!
One aspect that I want your input on is in regards to user guidelines. We want to make a clear list of guidelines for what kind of projects are and are not in harmony with permaculture principles, and what kind of behaviour is regarded as acceptable as far as profile information, profile updates, comments, etc. goes. This guideline list will be the basis upon which users can be reported for offences and potentially removed from the system if they persist. The guideline should create a protective fence around the system that encourages nurturing rather than criticism.
The most important thing is to ensure the system is used for its intended purpose – that of fast-tracking permaculture take-up in mainstream society, and helping people transition to a post-carbon world as peacefully and painlessly as possible. This incorporates helping people become permaculture consultants and aid workers, and helping share resources and knowledge and inspiration to get permaculture projects, large and small, started all around us. With this in mind, user guidelines will help us keep this system on track, and help give us the policing powers to stop misuse and/or intentional antagonism by people who do not understand or appreciate the basis and need of permaculture.
Please place listed suggestions in the comments below, and please write specific text as you’d expect it to be in the guidelines, rather than broad philosophical vagaries. I will take the best parts, aggregate them, and later create a final draft we can all revisit to finalise.
Thanks in advance for your support and participation in this important aspect of the new system.
Comments (15)Meeting APC Attendees – Rosemary Morrow
Conferences, Social Gatherings — by Patrick Blampied October 4, 2010
I had the honour of previewing the Worldwide Permaculture Network people/projects database to the 10th Australasian Permaculture Convergence (APC 10) with Geoff last week. During the breaks, with coffee and cookie in hand, I met some really wonderful people.
I’d heard about the work of many of these people and felt like I already knew some of them yet I still didn’t know their story.
So in keeping with the theme of the people and projects database I made a few short videos asking some of the people I met who they were and what their permaculture story was. First up, meet Rosemary Morrow.
Comments (2)
A Conference Full of Bill Mollisons
Conferences, Social Gatherings — by Ecofilms September 29, 2010
Going to your first Permaculture Convergence can be a funny thing to experience. For a start, as we were checking in at the resort where we were staying just outside Cairns, my wife nudged me and quietly pointed out the number of grey haired old men with white beards hanging around the lobby.
APC10 Gala Dinner
“Bill Mollison look-a-likes!” I whispered to her. Jane had never met the co-founder of Permaculture and was keen to be introduced to him. Later that evening she spots another one and says to me, “I’m pretty sure that’s the real Bill Mollison who was just checking in.”
“No. I’m pretty sure thats a fake one.” I replied.
Comments (3)You Can Help Develop the Worldwide Permaculture Network
Aid Projects, Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Education Centres, Networking Sites, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor
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As you know, we’re excited about the permaculture fast-tracking potential of the new Worldwide Permaculture Network database. I’ve just created a ChipIn, as you can see, to make it easy for others to contribute to this humanity-saving network that will help us all collaborate far better than we have to date.
Please consider adding the widget to your own website if you have one. Just click on the ‘copy’ tab on the widget to get the html code for pasting into your site, or click here to customise the widget and get platform-specific code.
After initial beta launch, we’ll be taking the best suggestions for development (there’s a feedback form within the new site) and working them into the system as we can afford. You can help us make it all it should be by contributing yourself and asking others in the permaculture community to do likewise.
The PRI has spent many thousands of dollars on this so far, as a gift to the permaculture community. We’ve seen a great deal of enthusiasm for this ‘facebook for permaculture’ – now’s your chance to express that enthusiasm in a very practical way! All assistance much appreciated.
Comments (3)Swarm for Change – Coalition of the Willing
Alternatives to Political Systems, Bio-regional Organisations, Community Projects, Developments, Networking Sites, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Society, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor September 28, 2010
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A few days ago I gave you all a sneak peek at the Worldwide Permaculture Network database we’re furiously working on. As I’ve expressed multiple times on this site and in discourses with permaculturists worldwide, it’s my firm belief that driving permaculture into mainstream thinking will only happen if the mainstream see the breadth and scope of permaculture work today, and its enormous potential if demanded by citizens and incentivised by governments. People need to see us as a movement; a force to be reckoned with and taken seriously. This is where such an online network as we’re building can become a valuable tool for real change. With it we can both showcase projects of every shape and size worldwide, and network and collaborate to put pressure where pressure is needed.
The following video clip expounds on these thoughts nicely.
I look forward to releasing this system for general consumption, and hope you will help us with feedback and involvement to make it everything it should be.
Comments (9)This Year’s Australasian Permaculture Convergence (APC10) and PDC Shaping Up to Be a Hit!
Community Projects, Conferences, Courses/Workshops, Developments, Education Centres, Social Gatherings, Society — by Darren Doherty September 8, 2010
From a few days ago:
HOLLYWOOD star Daryl Hannah flies into Cairns tomorrow while Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson’s eccentric nephew, Ned RocknRoll hits town today.
The environmentally minded duo plan to spend a month in the Far North for a two week permaculture design course and the Australasian Permaculture Convergence.
The events will be at Kuranda.
Mr RocknRoll, the head of marketing promotion and astronaut experience at Virgin Galatic [sic], will be joined by his wife Eliza.
Other big names at the event include former governor-general Major Michael Jeffery and SBS Television’s Costa Georgiadis, of Costa’s Gardening Odyssey. – Cairns.com.au
Calling Ned RockinRoll eccentric is a bit over the top, but then again the Cairns Post is a News Limited tabloid after all.
The Free Range Permaculture PDC starting this Sunday is now booked out which is great and we have an amazing lineup with lots of locals, some indigenous guys from up the gulf, a smattering of others from around the country plus Daryl Hannah (Hollywood actress & world’s #1 female celebrity environmentalist), the Hon. Eliza RocknRoll (nee Pearson & Humanitarian Activist) and her husband Ned RocknRoll (Virgin Galactic and nephew of Sir Richard Branson), Ken Bellamy (Prime Carbon) and Costa Georgiadis (SBS). This promises to be an interesting time with a entirely revamped course outline (following the cessation of The Permaculture Institute ‘Teacher Registration’ program) with 7 design exercises (with 3-4 choices per design), up another 2 design exercises on what we’ve been doing the last year or so. We’re keen to put the design back into the design course obviously.
There are still a few places left on the post course convergence – don’t dally though….
Comments (6)Would You Like to See a NSW Convergence?
Bio-regional Organisations, Community Projects, Conferences, Courses/Workshops, Developments, Networking Sites, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Village Development — by Penny Pyett September 3, 2010
Dear NSW Permaculturalists,
For some time now Permies in NSW have been talking about having a regular NSW Permaculture gathering. The discussion has been gathering momentum lately and many of us feel it’s time to organize the first such event.
The idea is to hold a state convergence late next year on the August long weekend – Friday 30th July to Monday 1st August 2011 – at a desirable live-in venue. Permaculture Sydney (representing Pc Sydney North, Pc Sydney South and Pc Sydney West) has agreed to host the first event in Sydney.
At this stage Permaculture Sydney would like to hear from Permies and representatives of local Permaculture groups across NSW about: a) Support for the convergence b) What you would like to see happen at the first State Permaculture convergence and c) If and how you would like to present or be involved in some way.
A State convergence provides many personal, social and professional opportunities:
Comments (5)Australasian Permaculture Convergence 10 – Only One Month to Go!!
Community Projects, Conferences, Developments, Social Gatherings — by Georgina Lemke August 27, 2010
What: The Tenth Australasian Permaculture Convergence (APC10)
When: September 24 – 27, 2010 (and post-convergence tablelands tour Tuesday, September 28)
Where: In the heart of the rainforest, Kuranda, Far North Queensland
Costs: Here
Register: Here
Why: Coz it’ll be bloody awesome! Read on to see why!!!
You could spend $50,000 and the rest of your life visiting all these amazing people and seeing their projects, or a hundred dollars now to meet them all in the one place at the same time. – Sarah-Jane, Star APC10 Volunteer, talking with Cairns locals at the Sustainable Living Expo last weekend.
Only One Month to go! We are not booked out. But you must register now!
This is our last APC10 Update before the event, which we have come to realise is likely to be the most important gathering of permaculture minds. The key themes in this convergence will be transition initiatives, engagement with the mainstream and renewing our networks and movement’s structure. In our extensive correspondence with permi people world-wide, there is a call for permaculture to move away from the margin to become an effective and credible voice in the future of Australia’s planning and preparations for the changes that will come as a result of climate change, peak oil, economic pertubations, migration shifts, etc.
We have summarised our plenary presenters below but we have an impressive line-up of speakers from around the world – in all about 50 people. Our programme is a conventional conference style programme, but interaction, discussion, round tables and time-out to network are vital to the convergence’s success. We will be testing our capacity to skype in speakers from around Australia and the globe – doing so on a shoe-string budget with volunteers. The complete and final programme is on the website: www.apc10.org
Comments (0)Turning Estates into Villages
Building, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Society, Village Development — by George Monbiot August 10, 2010
How good planning can make us slimmer, fitter, safer and less lonely.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
It took me a while to recognise what I was seeing. It was an ordinary campsite in Pembrokeshire: a square field with tents around the perimeter. But it had a curious effect on the children staying there. Young people who had seldom experienced daylight slowly emerged from their tents and were drawn towards the centre of the field. Bats and balls left on the grass mysteriously appeared in their hands. Children with no prior interest in sport started playing football, cricket and rounders. Little kids ran around with older ones. As children of all classes played together, their parents started talking to each other. It hit me with some force: we had reinvented the village green.
Source: Wikipedia
We are, to a surprising extent, what the built environment makes us. Academic papers show that many of the problems we blame on individual behaviour are caused in part by the places in which we live. People are more likely to help their neighbours in quiet areas, for example, than in noisy ones(1). A long series of studies across several countries, beginning in San Francisco in 1969, shows unequivocally that communities become weaker as the volume of traffic on their streets increases(2,3).
Comments (4)From Little Things Big Things Grow
Consumerism, Courses/Workshops, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Land, Markets & Outlets, People Systems, Retrofitting, Social Gatherings, Society, Trees, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Matt Lees July 30, 2010
Have you ever grown your own food? Studies have shown that people who eat organic produce from their own garden have an increased sense of well being and good health.
In September 2007 I met a group of motivated, hardcore volunteer gardeners. When I say hardcore, some of these guys where involved with the guerrilla gardeners. They turn unused trashy areas and transform them into edible, self-sustaining gardens.
It started like this….
Some groups even go to extremes like dressing up in council uniforms or go out in the middle of the night and load their vans armed with fruit tree seedlings, compost and shovels.
Comments (4)Ring a Mate
Conferences, Courses/Workshops, Social Gatherings — by Bruce Zell July 29, 2010
Australian Permaculture Conference, September 2010.
 Time to get on the Bat Phone! |
Certainly this world class event has attracted a fantastic involvement with extraordinary presenters bringing cutting edge information, not to mention the inspiration that will come with them.
Attending delegates themselves are working in the field on projects at home and abroad and have brilliant tales to tell – success, challenges, stories and experiences that barely leave a stone unturned.
I am encouraged by a holistic view of the Australian Permaculture Convergence, inspired by the ANZAC spirit of being Australian: Mate-ship, A fair Go and Having a Go
Comments (0)Only Two Months to Go Until the Next Biggest Event in Permaculture
Community Projects, Conferences, Courses/Workshops, News, Social Gatherings — by Kym Kruse
The 10th Australasian Permaculture Convergence APC10
September 24 – 27, 2010
Do not delay registering for this premier event and promote it throughout your business, training and social networks.
An exciting programme of forums, presentations, workshops, round-table discussions, plenary speakers both skyped in and visiting from around Australia and the world.
Talking about Transition Towns, Indigenous knowledge, urban planning, agriculture, humanitarian & emergency responses, ethics, advocacy, population, gender, business, education & training and so much more.
Plenary speakers and presenters include: Bill Mollison, Daryl Hannah, Maj. Gen. Michael Jeffery, Mark O’Connor, Gunter Pauli, Janet Millington, Sonya Wallace, Russ Grayson, Geoff Lawton, Darren J.Doherty, Andrea Pape, Robin Clayfield, David Holmgren and Costa Georgiadis and many, many more.
An event for newcomers, as well as the traditional Convergence.
All set within the pristine, protected beauty of the tropical Queensland wet tropics rainforest.
Read the July Update and the Programme (PDFs).
Do not leave it to the last minute. Do not miss out.
Comments (1)
