Re: step by step community formation CORRECTION

David
Thanks so much for your astute comments. As you heard, I have been operating 
my community's list on the edge of unsustainability unless I transform it 
into a more working list.
Based on what you said, I plan to request bios and pictures from everyone on 
the list within a few days, otherwise they are off. Then I will demand each 
person commit to learning and teaching the group about any one of the eight 
levels of sustainability defined in the Ecovillage Training manual from 
Findhorn. I made an initial request but not demand. thankfully there were 
two very worthy volunteers that accepted immediately. One was for the 
spiritual aspect and one for the economic. Excellent!
Future new list members will be given one week to review the messages and 
other material on our web site, then give bio, photo and choose to work on 
one sustainability level, or off they go! How's that? what do you think?
Then in a while, after the dust from these steps has settled, I will have to 
ramp up the money  and travel, and social commitments as well.
This community is a Jewish one located in Israel. Most of the prospects are 
already living here, a few will be coming from overseas as legal immigrants 
(the law here allows for legal immigration by anyone who can prove they are 
Jewish.)
There are hassles with relocating--for those overseas, the logistics of 
moving a household across the ocean, the time and expense of setting up a 
life here and coping with bureaucratic issues, and for those already 
here--many of us are financially pinched, the country is not as affluent as 
the US and it is very hard for immigrants to attain financial stability 
within conventional society. One attraction of the ecovillage is via 
alternative economics to offer some relief from the relentless economic 
pressures we all face here. We'd rather expend efforts creating a community 
than battling whatever economic forces we are struggling with. Still, for 
many we are so busy just living our daily lives, myself included, that to 
find the time to negotiate a lease and move is quite a struggle.
As far as wild harvesting, yes that's a wonderful idea, but in our new place 
we will face a desert of monoculture. The elderly residents of the village 
have rented out their 1000 acres of farmland to agribusiness operations that 
grow wheat almost exclusively. There is almost no uncultivated land except 
immediately around the houses. I don't think we can even fallow the land and 
let the wild stuff grow without lots of complaints about scattering weed 
seeds on their extremely overcultivated land. So, well have to plant winter 
legumes (it's plenty warm enough to grow them here) and let them sit there 
for the summer. And lots of trees, most especially NFTs as pesticide 
"fences." Most blessedly I have a permaculture design certificate, and some 
experience, and there are plenty of others with plenty of similar and 
complementary skills.
We also have a fine organic compost facility nearby and I am not adverse to 
jumpstarting a very big garden with a few truckloads of compost. But I also 
realize that for the beginning, organizing the people is more important than 
growing food right now. We can still buy food, the village is in the middle 
of the breadbasket farming area of the country, and if oil prices skyrocket 
to where no one can run a tractor, we can have enough food to eat within 
months by hand labor. What we need more are workable economic and social 
relationships and a critical mass of people with complementary skills to 
ramp up every aspect of sustainability.
Please tell me about your community and also whether you are willing to 
offer me continuing guidance.
thank you very much.
Bat-Tzion


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Cameron" <info-oggiLW5btbMsA/[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 4:03 PM
Subject: Re: [Ecobal]step by step community formation CORRECTION


> Advice on "lurkers": Anyone not immediately forthcoming with bios &  pics 
> after your stated need to rock'n roll BEFORE  national/international 
> crisis is not ON your list. Continue invitations  and ramp up the ante for 
> staying on the list, ie $ commitments, travel  commitments, work 
> commitments. Don't let assumed crisis dates push you  faster than others 
> can be nudged, dragged & pushed along-you seem to be  operating in a 
> sustenance situation which likely has little "fat" & you  could be the big 
> loser if you jeopardize that situation before there is  sustainable 
> commitment from others.
>
> Keep in mind with the how-to books & plans that creating community is 
> very hard, never-ending work & convey that emphatically to prospects. 
> Look at small real-time communities as well as intentional ones. (Many 
> many of course started out as intentional communities a few hundred  years 
> or so ago). See how people come & go in a natural way-what they  are 
> attracted to & driven out by, the many winds of change that blow  through 
> any long-term community.
>
> I hear your impatience & perceived lack of time for planning. Do rough 
> out the core philosophy, point at appropriate precedents as approximate 
> examples, propose at least one conflict resolution mechanism and get 
> consensus. Speaking of "best practices" some form of consensus decision 
> making is usually  a requisite for success & if you can't get consensus 
> in the short-term you are unlikely to get it in the long-term.
>
> Given where you are going, learn a lot about wild edibles (if you 
> haven't)-that way you won't be so disappointed if it takes a while to  get 
> garden production on line. Old fallow farmland usually has a lot of 
> edible "weeds" well colonized, even potential cash-crops of wild & 
> semi-wild herbs, mushrooms, earthworms (for verimiculture composting, 
> soil rehabilitation,  chicken feed & bait for fishing).
>
> Are the Yahoo potentials geographically/politically able to relocate 
> without undue hassle? I know lots of people want to come to Canada to 
> make communities but the immigration law situation is very formidable. 
> People actually buy land & then find they can't easily stay. In the  many 
> years people have been asking me about joining a community,  immigration 
> has most often become the insurmountable hurdle.
>
> best wishes
> david cameron
>
> 

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