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Washington Permaculture Convergence- September | (Read 215 times) |
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kelda
Posts: 263
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August 02, 2008, 01:22:21 PM |
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http://www.friendsofthetrees.net/images/wapermconvergeinside.pdf
WASHINGTON STATE
PERMACULTURE
CONVERGENCE
September 12-14, 2008 - Friday-Sunday
Sahale Learning Center
Belfair, Washington (southwest corner of Hood Canal)
Bringing permaculture people together
from around Washington State & beyond.
Sharing information, solutions,
inspirations and insights!
Convergence Goals:
The convergence is a way to strengthen information flow and cooperation between
permaculturists in the state of Washington (and beyond). To work on a vision of how
permaculture can better serve the people and land of Washington state. How can more
permaculturists make their living doing consulting, installation, teaching, etc?
This convergence will have some aspects of an organizational meeting for the
permaculture community.
The convergence will also be an educational event on gardening, water catchments,
forest gardens, terra preta soil, wildcrafting, bio-diesel and other topics of
interest for seasoned permaculturists and interested members of the general public.
The final format of the event will evolve depending on who shows up. We expect that
there will be advanced as well as basic level workshops.
The convergence is for professional permaculturists, permaculture design course
graduates and people newly involved.
Permaculture Convergences are held at international, national and regional levels.
PC conergences have been held in Washington State in the past but there has not been
one for more than a decade.
The weekend's offerings will be diverse and will include:
*Workshops by knowledgeable presenters with multiple presenters in some instances.
* Panel discussions.
* Plenary sessions
* Demonstrations.
* Hands-on activities.
* Round-table discussions.
* Regional caucuses
* Informal networking and friendship making.
* Music and entertainment. Bring your musical instruments songs and dancing shoes.
Self-reliance in entertainment.
PRESENTERS INCLUDE:
Marisha Auerbach
Chuck Estin
Brian Hindman
Michael Pilarski
Bruce Weiskotten
+ many more
Many other experienced permaculturists have expressed strong interest in attending
and we expect some of the following to be presenters:
Michael Becker, Dave Boehnlein, Barry Griffin, Chris Hogan, John Howe, Mike Maki,
Chris Mare, Brent Naylor, Jenny Pell, Albert Postema, Pat Rasmussen and Matthew
VanBoven. Anyone can schedule a workshop, presentation, demonstrations, hands-on
activity, or meeting. You can schedule beforehand or at the event. To discuss
scheduling contact Michael Pilarski at: michael@friendsofthetrees.net
CONVERGENCE FEES:
$60 to $100 sliding scale. All weekend activities and meals.
Single day: $30 to $50 sliding scale.
+ $50 for private room (weekend)
or $25 for a bed in a dorm room (4 to 6 people)
No extra fee for tenting or staying in your RV/vehicle.
We will be doing some scheduling in advance of the event, but we are deliberately
leaving room for the combined participants to help plan the event. We trust in the
spontaneous ability of the participants to share and relate to each other in the
moment. You get a large group of permaculture people together and a lot of synthesis
and knowledge exchange is bound to happen and be a whale of a good time.
SAHALE LEARNING CENTER
Sahale Learning Center is a beautiful venue specializing in transformational
education and green events
* A remote, rural location on the lower Tahuya River with rainforest, big trees,
river, floodplain, gardens, and buildings. Embraced by 65 acres of forest and
valley, the land holds within its valley a sacred grove of cedars more than 300
years old.
* 11 private rooms.
* 26 beds in dormitory rooms.
* Commercial kitchen, dining room and outside patio.
* Big 40 x 60' circus tent with plywood floor for large plenary meetings.
* Various small meeting rooms.
* Unlimited camping space.
* A building with 4 hot showers in the camping area.
* 1 large and 1 small hot tub.
* River with pools and sweat lodge.
* Sahale is into permaculture. They hosted permaculture design courses in 2004 and
2005. They are incorporating permaculture into their land development.
* They are exploring setting up an ecovillage on the site.
* Sahale seeks site input fromconvergence participants.
Visit their website at: www.goodenough.org/Sahale.htm
LOCATION
Located just 25 minutes from Belfair, Washington, Sahale is an easy drive from
Seattle, Tacoma, and the Olympic Peninsula.
You can get to Sahale from Olympia; from the Fauntleroy ferry terminal in west
Seattle, by going over the Narrows Bridge in Tacoma or by driving south from the
Hood Canal Bridge.
FEEDING OURSELVES: Growing food is one of permaculture's biggest features, so we are
going to rely on the participants to donate the food that will feed us. This is one
of the ways we are able to keep the convergence fees affordable. September is peak
harvest month in Washington State. What familiar or exotic food can you bring from
your garden or your wildcrafting? We would like to see a wide range of vegetables,
fruits, berries, grains, nuts, and all manner of food products and beverages. Bring
your best to impress the rest. Diversity. Please let the registrar know what you
plan on bringing so she can relay the information to the head cook. We are asking
everyone to take a shift in the kitchen. This is another way we are keeping
convergence fees low.
ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE TIMES:
Thursday, September 11: 5:00 pm to 11:00 pm. Early registration. Participants may
arrive early to help set-up and familiarize themselves with the site.
Friday. Registration open all day.
Saturday. Registration open all day.
Sunday. Registration open till noon.
Sunday 5:00 pm. Closing circle.
People may stay over on Sunday evening if they are helping with site clean-up.
SCHOLARSHIPS:
We would like to offer a number of scholarships (up to 10) to interested people
representing disadvantaged communities, peoples or tribes. Send us an email or write
us a letter if you would like to apply or represent someone.
PUBLICITY: Help spread the word through word-of-mouth, flyers, emails or mentions on
websites or in print.
The WSPC seeks someone to manage a website, chatroom, listserve, etc to enable
communication between Washington permaculturists for WSPC and beyond.
Calling all permaculturists in Washington State!
This convergence is an opportunity for anyone
interested in permaculture to expand their knowledge.
Would you like to attend?
Registrations, inquiries to:
Christy Nieto
Bellingham, WA 9882
360-312-3928
fieldofgreens@earthlink.net
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« Last Edit: September 03, 2008, 08:09:53 AM by paul wheaton »
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paul wheaton
Administrator
Posts: 1338
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August 07, 2008, 02:42:41 PM |
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FWIW, I've marked my calendar and sent an email in. I plan on going.
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paul wheaton
Administrator
Posts: 1338
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August 21, 2008, 01:44:39 PM |
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I've paid. I'm in. I'm planning on showing up on thursday eve.
I'll be coming from Monroe if anybody wants to carpool.
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kelda
Posts: 263
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August 22, 2008, 10:19:21 AM |
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I'll be hosting a 'permaculture's applicability for low-income communities' talk on saturday, late morning. I'm hoping a lot of people come with good ideas, as its a topic I find myself wondering on a lot. I'm not so much 'presenting' as just bringing up the topic.
I think this is the most pressing issue for permies right now! Even desertification isn't so much caused by poor land use practices, as much as it is by poverty. Climate change, what are the populations most affected and would be most helped by sustainability techniques? Again, the global poor.
Us in the privileged circles should be discussing how to best help.
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kelda
Posts: 263
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September 12, 2008, 07:20:09 PM |
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news from the convergence:
Friday and it's wonderful to see so many awesome people together at once! There's almost 90 registered. The site is beautiful, lots of sunshine and fruit trees and a river to go visit.
Today, Toby gave a great talk about 'permaculture can save culture but not civilization'. It was very inspiring. One interesting point that a lot of us took away is that permaculture is more of a horticulture perspective than an agriculture one. The word 'horticulture' comes from the word 'plant', whereas 'agriculture' comes from the word 'field'. So we're already using that around today, a horticulture society.
Then I went to an interesting discussion about having interns and questions that come up. There were a lot of great examples, and some of course bad stories everyone can learn from. A good sum up is something Dave said "you can set up many types of formats, but if you're very clear about expectations you can find interns that are happy with it. good communication is key".
I'm looking forward to first organizing what needs to be done at my site, and then always being able to delegate something to any volunteers that come by.
And tonight dinner, some more introductions, and a dance party or so. I can't wait to get back to these great folks!
Will post more tomorrow,
K
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kelda
Posts: 263
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September 14, 2008, 07:13:45 PM |
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sunday from the convergence:
yesterday was great: morning started to with a good circle down in the field, then I went to the cedar grove session where two native american women (now living on the tulalip reservation) shared a story so relevant to permaculture folks. There are two paths to choose from: the earth path and the civilized path. One continues on, and the other one ends in destruction. Time to choose. We heard a great story written by native youth from Marysville.
Then I hosted a discussion on permaculture's approachability to underpriveleged communities. It was just a random discussion, (a discussion I often have ), but from this crowd we talked about some new things. Of course, meeting people where their concerns are, not evangelizing, and having a two-way dialogue. Also, remembering that we're really going to be the most fruitful when finding leaders in the subculture we also belong to(sustainability minded folks) , that share our interests.
Then last night a really fun campfire with stories, and then later on fun singing and dancing. All hopeful and then some fun collapse stuff.
This morning I helped with chores and missed some sessions. But I did make it to a session about folks in my area. It's great to connect to fun future work we can all do together. And then at lunch we had much energy discussing the website we'll be creating for future networking across washington state.
Now, I should really leave this posting business and get back to hanging out with so many friends. We already had a lovely closing circle, but there's apple pressing and dinner and then SO much food leftover from all our donations.
more thoughts later1
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paul wheaton
Administrator
Posts: 1338
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September 16, 2008, 10:57:40 AM |
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That was a fantastic event. Probably the best event I've been to in three years.
A hundred people. So many good talks. So much excellent information.
I always thought an apple tree did not have a tap root. Did you know that if you start an apple from seed that it DOES have a taproot?
I was in line to get food and asked the owner of raintree nurseries (yes! The nursery famous for all the great permie plants!) about somebody that wanted to plant red huckleberry in their backyard, and the next guy over showed me a picture of how he had harvested seeds from the very plant in this area with the idea of selling seeds for that very purpose! He gave me his card: insidepassageseeds.com - cool site!
Stuff like that went on and on and on and on .... What an excellent event!
A lot of my most favorite people in the world were there. Of course I saw Kelda and several other people that pop in here. And ... well ... I don't know how else to describe it .... and while I'm not a very woo-woo person - you definitely catch a vibe that everybody there is about to pop with happiness. It just feels great to be in the company of so much positive energy. I'm still riding on the afterglow of just being there.
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kelda
Posts: 263
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October 09, 2008, 08:53:50 PM |
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From Michael Pilarski:
*Washington State Permaculture Convergence held September 11-13, 2008
/
Report by Michael Pilarski/
*
The Washington State Permaculture Convergence (WSPC) was a wonderful
event! Many old friends and new. Many balls were sent rolling which will
yield results for years to come. A spirit of excitement and cooperation
were in the air. This was the first Washington pc gathering in many
years and it was well received.
A big “Thank You” to every one of the 115 people who participated.
Special thanks are due to many individuals including the twenty-three
who gave workshops, presentations or focalized discussions.
The participants brought an abundance of good food and Colette Hoff led
the kitchen teams in preparing great meals throughout the convergence.
Colette is a member of the GoodEnough Community and one of the people
who run the Shale Learning Center. Thus Colette not only had to run the
kitchen, she also had to act as one of the Sahale infrastructure team.
She did an amazing job and reports that she always had wonderful teams
of people volunteer to put out the meals. Even though there were always
lots of exciting workshops to attend, people took the time to get the
community jobs done. The spirit of community and cooperation was
everywhere evident.
Christy Nieto did a capable job of convergence registrar, which included
fielding most questions before the event; keeping track of payments and
arrangements beforehand; registering people during the convergence (she
talked to everyone), and now doing follow-up. We are thrilled Christy
has agreed to be registrar for 2009.
Thanks to the steering committee members for their work in planning and
carrying out the event. The 2008 steering committee included: Marisha
Auerbach, Chuck Estin, Brian Hindman, Colette Hoff, Kelda Miller,
Michael Pilarski, Laura Sweany, and Bruce Weiskotten. At the end of this
year’s WSPC, they all volunteered to be on the steering committee for
2009 plus new members: Tom Allen, Rosemary Buchmeier, Mike L., Christy
Nieto, Albert Postema, Steve Tracy, Michelle Van Zandt and David Zhang.
Thanks to Toby Hemenway for his great keynote talk on Friday. His
presentation and the many images he presented to us tied together the
theme of the “horticultural” societies that existed between
hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies. The period of time when
humans invented so many useful strategies for humans to co-create
bountiful ecosystems with nature. Toby is well known as the author of
the great permaculture book, “Gaia’s Garden”. Over half the convergence
participants have read his book and the high regard that we hold Toby
was reflected in the substantial applause he received.
Dave Boehnlein gave a noteworthy presentation on “Large-Scale
Permaculture Projects. Dave is one of the team members of Exos Design,
which does permaculture consulting. Doug Bullock is also one of the team
members and Dave lives and works at the Bullock Brothers Homestead on
Orcas Island. Dave brought final reports from several of their jobs. The
reports were finely bound, the size of substantial books, and included
colorful charts, photos, drawings, species lists, etc, etc. The quality
of their design presentation has to rank among the best in the world.
Regional meetings were held on Sunday morning and we expect to see
increased regional collaboration and organization as a result.
A website is in the works which will enable Washington’s permaculture
community to communicate with each other and the greater world. The
website team currently consists of Paul Wheaton, Steve Tracy, Jason,
John Cruickshank and ? (more volunteers welcome). The website names of
www.washingtonpermaculture.com and www.washingtonpermaculture.org were
secured by John Cruickshank during the convergence.
We had a period where people could announce upcoming permaculture design
courses being offered over the next year and it looks like Washington
will have its largest number of courses ever offered in one year. They
will be announced on the website once it is set up. The website will
offer a way for people to list permaculture courses and workshops in
Washington State.
Marisha Auerbach led a discussion on permaculture internships, Chris
Chisholm led one on finding partners for permaculture ventures and Sam
Benowitz led a discussion on how to pass on one’s life work and
permaculture living situations for old age. Participants of the latter
discussion will write up some of the ideas for the website.
Participants included many of the most active permaculturists in the
state both old and new. Participants included some of the earliest
people to promote permaculture in the state such as Mike Maki, founder
of the Maritime Permaculture Institute circa 1981; Sam Benowitz of
Raintree Nursery had the largest turnout of any workshop for his talk on
fruits for the Northwest; Forest Shomer of Inside Passage Seeds and
founder of Abundant Life Seed Foundation gave a seed collecting walk;
and Michael Pilarski kept up his reputation as a song and dance leader.
As befitting even a regional permaculture event there was an
international presence as well. People representing India, Uruguay,
Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, China, England and Native
American tribes were in attendance. Participants from other states
included Oregon, California, Montana, Alaska, Kansas, Minnesota and
Louisiana.
We were pleased to have Native American emissaries Lisa Powers and her
daughter Bibiana join us and make a presentation on Native American
prophecies for this time. They bring word from various international
indigenous gatherings and left us a song. Lisa and Bibiana live and work
on the Tulalip Reservation. Creating more interchanges and information
sharing between permaculturists and Native Americans in Washington state
was discussed and we it hope will lead to more interaction.
The evening entertainment was great and totally spontaneous. A wonderful
music and song circle on Friday night with great instrumentation on
guitars, cello, violin, drums, etc.
Saturday night included a story and song circle that went hilariously
into the wee hours of the morning. The hot tub saw much conversation and
soaking.
Albert Postema’s power-point presentation on large-scale earthworks had
to have the most images per hour of any show ever. The large machinery
of his business, Earthworks Excavation allows Albert to implement huge
hugelkultures, spirals and other earthworks. It was hard to tell at
first if Albert’s initial photo of his acres-wide, bermed spiral was
permaculture or the aftermath of strip-mining. It will be something to
see once the plantings take hold.
The outside world was changing even as we were doing the convergence.
The big $700 billion bail-out for Wall Street was just becoming big
news. Whether the bail-out happens or not, it shows that the world’s
financial systems are in the stages of unraveling with concomitant great
changes. The end of USA hegemony is upon us (whether planned or not).
Permaculturists can be on the forefront with solutions for the local
crises, which will arise.
Chuck Estin and Mike Maki’s workshops were both focused on how
permaculture can help create an Alternative Scenario B, during the
coming great changes. Would anyone like to write a report on what these
two workshops covered? It is interesting to note that a topic on the
permaculture email listserve, ibiblio.com started shortly after the
convergence on the topic of “Pre-Design for Collapse”.
Everyone should check out David Holmgren’s new website
www.FuturesScenarios.org
Holmgren is the co-originator of Permaculture with Bill Mollison. His
new website goes into detail on various scenarios we are likely to face
in the next decades.
Since the global economy is big on the news right now, here are several
websites which I would recommend reading on the topic.
http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-22-is-available!-Global-systemic-crisis-September-2008-Phase-of-collapse-of-US-real-economy_a1298.html
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/nation/60291-imminent-collapse-u-s-economy-occur-september-2008-a-3.html
There was an enthusiastic response to hold a 2nd WSPC and the date of
September 11-13, 2009 has been set. The Sahale Learning Center was a
great spot for this year’s WSPC and so we are meeting there again next
year. We expect to increase in size next year. Registration details will
be forthcoming at a later date. We hope to see everyone back again next
year and more.
Best wishes to all from the Washington State Permaculture Community.
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