permaculture. biz

G'day,

When Jesus Ruiz sent through his order for a Keyline Plow to the office of the Yeomans Plow Company they apparently didn't know what was going on....they knew the plow was good but it must be good if Jesus wants one!

Jesus is a professional surveyor who attended the very 1st Keyline course in the EU in 2007 (organised by EcoHabitar and PermaCultura-es) and since then has been extremely active in extending much Keyline knowledge & practice across Iberia and working with our Latin American colleagues such as COAS (especially Eugenio Gras). Jesus has developed a great version of the Keyline SuperPlow based on the model that Ben Falloon and I put together (and laterly Ned RocknRoll) that he hoiks around Iberia behind his Subaru!

In Latino cyberspace Jesus has put on line a heap of materials around our course work in both Spain & Mexico up online for few viewing on his otherwise excellent website www.lineaclave.org (lineaclave = Keyline in Spanish).

These materials range include:

6 day Keyline Design Course in Brihuega, Castilla La Mancha, Spain, 2007

7 day COAS Keyline Course in El Arenal, Jalisco, Mexico, 2009

15 day Permaculture Design Course, 'Son Ru lan', Deià, Mallorca, 2009

Plus a heap of other material including video's featuring the late, great Masanobu Fukuoka and many others....

All of these courses are bilingual in with me being expertly and indefatigably interpreted by Charlie, Ana, Eugenio & Antonio from Australian English to Spanish. Thanks also to Hugo, Antonio etc for videoing and editing this material.

I don't know if there are any other complete video's of PDC's on the internet. Whatever the case I probably will never get another booking at any of my courses now so thanks Jesus! We still have a few up our sleeve's though that are yet to reach cyberland - give it time though....

Thanks again to Jesus and all the others involved. We do enjoy the Latin spirit expressed by people like Jesus, Ana Digon, Antonio Scotti, Eugenio Gras, Jairo Restrepo, Sebastiao Pinhiero and many others of getting things out there and expressing those great Permaculture Principles of 'Accelerating Succession & Evolution' and 'Positivism' by following that great dictum of 'Cooperation not Competition....

All the best,

Darren

G'day,

We are currently organising dates for an array of short courses, seminars and PDC's to be held in Europe from August of 2011. These include the following:

Keyline® Farming Course, France, August 2011
Keyline® Farming Course, Portugal, August 2011
Keyline® Farming Course, Italy, August 2011
Keyline® Farming Course, Germany, September 2011
PDC Greece, September, 2011
PDC Mallorca, October, 2011
RegenAG® Keyline® Farming Course, UK, October, 2011

There are talks around us conducting a series of advanced design and practical skills-based courses as well to include the following:

Advanced Design Skills Course
Agroforestry & Silviculture Workshop
GIS/Watershed Analysis Course
Earthworks Practicum
Ferrocement Tank Building Practicum
Intro to RegenAG® Day Workshop

The duration of the tour is at this stage to be from late July to early November 2011. As with previous tours conveners current and prospective are splitting the flight and advertising costs.

To register your interest in either hosting or attending a specific event please contact me at darren@permaculture.biz.

Thanks,

Darren

G'day,

The latest offering of the RegenAG 'Off the Contour' column is now up for viewing (http://regenag.blogspot.com/2010/12/off-contour-5-inaugural-regenag-year-to.html).

All the best for the new year,

Darren J. Doherty
www.RegenAG.com

G'day,

In the last week or so Joel Salatin's 'Local Farms & Community' (http://www.regenag.com/workshops/polyface/) RegenAG tour in NZ went great with 100 turning up for the seminar in Ashhurst, 200 at Napier and another 70 for the 2 day workshop at Mangarara Station in Hawkes Bay. Tonight Joel wowed an audience of over 415, packing the house in Sydney for the 1st of his Australian RegenAG events.

In its first year RegenAG (a non-profit public company limited by guarantee) will have trained over 850 participants in its 'Holistic Management', 'BioFertile Farms', 'Keyline Farming' & 'Local Farms & Community' modules plus over 1200 people in short seminars both in Australia and NZ. In 2011 we will have an expanded list of modules available with more of the world's great Regenerative Agriculture practitioners. Our model will also expand into the EU (including Germany and the UK), plus Mexico and the US over 2011/12.

For those of you still interested in the remaining 'Local Farms & Community' workshops and seminars RegenAG still has places for the following workshops/seminars with Joel Salatin across eastern Australia with others not listed already booked out:

NOVEMBER 2010
24 - Evening - Copland Theatre, ANU, Canberra, ACT - Seminar
25 - Day - Mulloon Creek, Bungendore, ACT - Workshop (Day 1)
26 - Day - Mulloon Creek, Bungendore, ACT - Workshop (Day 2)
28 - Afternoon - Bendigo Town Hall, Bendigo, VIC - Seminar
29 - Day - Taranaki, Woodend, VIC - Workshop1 (Day 1)
30 - Day - Taranaki, Woodend, VIC - Workshop1 (Day 2)

DECEMBER 2010
4 - Evening - Northey Street Farm, Windsor (Brisbane) - Seminar
5 - Evening - Shangri La Hotel, Cairns, FNQLD - Seminar
7 - Day - Weatherby Station, Mt Molloy, FNQLD - Workshop (Day 1)
8 - Day - Weatherby Station, Mt Molloy, FNQLD - Workshop (Day 2)
9 - Evening - Australian Rural Education Centre, Mudgee - Seminar

Remember like all RegenAG workshops, the 2 day 'Local Farms & Community' workshop is FarmReady approved and so those eligible may have access to this great and very effective subsidy.

Thanks to all of you who have come to support a great first year for RegenAG and we are really looking forward to 2011 and beyond.

All the best,

Darren J. Doherty
Permaculture Designer since 1993

http://www.permaculture.biz
http://www.regenag.com
darren@permaculture.biz

Regenerative Agricultural System Design & Education

G'day,

Having recently set up our RegenAG (http://www.regenag.com/) account on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/), we are now in the process of uploading a series of archival and current footage on a range of related information. Vimeo, unlike YouTube provides the opportunity to download movies (though of course you can work your way around downloading YouTubes by using 3rd party software) in their uploaded form which for those running courses etc is useful when they want to include clips and short excerpts etc in their presentations.

Thanks to a Geoff Booth, who has archived several rather historic pieces of Keyline material, and Vimeo, we are now able to provide everyone with the opportunity to see a 'Rural Bank of New South Wales' feature on Keyline produced in 1955 (http://vimeo.com/13323213). This is an excellent piece and is a relevant as ever though of course combined with Permaculture and Holistic Management etc its capacity to rapidly restore agricultural landscapes has never before been more pronounced or possible: just cheap energy is not as available to do the starting work....The language is of its time and its a great piece that we take great pleasure in sharing with you all.

We are also in the process of uploading another Keyline feature from 1968 around PA Yeomans work on a 'FloodFlow' project in New Caledonia as feature in his book of the same year 'Water for Every Farm' plus two 1979 radio interviews with Yeomans on Melbourne radio station 3CR with Bruce Hedge, Geoff Booth and Phil Gall. We will forward the links to these as they are uploaded.

Enjoy.

All the best,

Darren Doherty 

G'day,

Following on from a similar, though longer workshop held in El Arenal in Jalisco, Mexico in late 2009, we are holding a 'GIS/Watershed Analysis for Permaculture Practicum' from the 10-11th of August 2011 here in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. Again this is subject to requests over the year and particularly more recently. The short notice is due to our 'chock a block' schedule especially with the RegenAG workshop series starting in August and taking great bookings plus a number of requests to hold such a workshop before too long so here it is....

Similar to our recent 'Earthworks Practicum' we will be hosting a minimum number of participants ( in our family home. The workshop will focus on using the various commonly available software including Google Earth and MapInfo Professional. Mapping techniques using modern and ancient levels plus GPS technology will also be integrated into this workshop. Our simple intention is to skill people to be able to use these techniques to develop their digital cartographic skills for the purposes of creating Permaculture designs as we have been doing since 1996.

This workshop is not intended for those who find reading maps difficult or who have difficulty with operating computers.

Details are below:

Date: 10-11 August, 2010

Where: 45 Casey St, Bendigo East, Victoria, Australia

What to Bring: Warm Clothes, Bed Clothes, Sleeping Bag, Pillow, Bath Towel, Notes, Great Positive Attitude

Accommodation: 45 Casey St, Bendigo East, Victoria, Australia

Public Transport: Flights into Melbourne (MEL) & almost hourly trains from Melbourne to Bendigo. We can pick you up and drop you off at the Bendigo Station.

Price: $300/day all inclusive for couples, $200/day all inclusive for singles - 3 meals a day of beautiful home cooked omnivorous local food plus all beverages etc. Vegetarians are catered for.

Bookings: darren@permaculture.biz or phone +61 3 5443 9410

Payments: Full payment on morning of Day 1 (10th August 2010) or Pre-Pay via PayPal or Direct Deposit

Numbers are strictly limited to 8 people.

A handbook will be supplied to each participant as part of the practicum.

As always our typical open access to all kinds of electronic materials applies so please bring a portable hard-drive or larger memory stick.

Program:

Day 1:

- Overview of various software & equipment
- Putting a Contoured Aerial Photo Base Map together: Accessing data, scanning/digitising; mapping projections, geographic registration
- Coordination of a mapping project:  Surveying, logistics, order of process, standards of output
- Watershed Assessment: Catchment Analysis, Runoff Coefficients, BioEngineering structures and strategies

Day 2:

- Concept Plan Development: Urban & rural design cartography strategies, revision procedures
- Detail Design Development: CAD applications, standards of output, codification, printing & sharing protocols/practices
- Bills of Quantities: What to include, costing a project, broader strategies for project management/schedules/process
- Q&A time - Open Slather!

We already have a couple of bookings so just as our other short practicums this one is sure to be booked out quickly.

All the best,

Darren Doherty