Getting the flow flowing...

Encouragingly we have been doing some pretty amazing things between us all, and now that we have offered our individual talents, services, skills and resources to the A.E.C. we are likely to get to a place where sharing becomes an everyday feature of peoples lives. This will not be a bad thing, way too little real sharing (altruism) goes on presently in society, yet there are many wonderful examples to cheer us along being done both here in Lincoln and the wider community if we look and see. We are hoping that through the A.E.C.  a new wave of collective activity and collaboration, working cooperatively will flood the world around us with positivity and love, and set a bench mark of community spirit to be sought after. The skills and talents of each person whom have already expressed their interest in getting involved are wide and varied, giving us hope that everything can be seen as opportunities to learn and incorporate our determined efforts to do something alternative. Our world needs pioneers, people like the Rochdale Pioneers who set the Co-operative movement well and truly on its way. Almost two hundred years later, the ethics of those early men and women, their core Values and Principles are still a beacon of hope to people who see that the purely capitalist way of working is seriously flawed and bound by much greediness. Co-operatives are different, they are by the people for the people. Though some current  activities of the Co-op Group are being called into question, (and rightly so) the actual values and principles of co-operation when properly implemented, can be seen as a well thought out development tool for the common and hard working man in the street to feel as an equal in society. Solidarity is about working together and sharing the resources eqitably. 

A new project that is also underway here in Lincoln, and will heavily compliment the A.E.C. is being heralded as the best COMMUNITY ACTIVITY PROJECT FOR DECADES. Soon to open this summer in the old 'BIG WOK' building on Beaumont Fee it will have a hefty mantle to carry, but in many ways it will be the best chance Lincoln has had in a very long time to be truly a collective and co-operative venture. BECAUSE it has very little to do with making money. Of course there have been many projects paid for by us the taxpayers that have benefitted Lincoln and Lincolnshire, and we are grateful to all of them. The new venture, titled LINCOLN-SHARE is observably different. It will house a variety of groups that are offering their services to the community and general public that are provided for free or low cost activity participation. Groups such as the already established Revival Lincoln's community well-being activity centre, Therapists Cooperative Consortium, Hack-space Lincoln, The Social Science Centre, Transition Town Lincoln, General Practice, and newer recently developing groups like our Abundant Earth Community amongst others, will have space and resource facilities available to them for development and shared activity. 

So its another helping up hand to our aims and objectives. If you'd like to know more about what we are hoping to achieve then please read all the previous blog items. If you seriously want to be part of the creation of this group A.E.C. and or any of the others mentioned, then all you need to do is get involved and in touch with us, letting us know how you feel that you could co-operate effectively as part of this group. We are going to begin with more frequent meetings for the core group, strategising and directing our joint efforts, and also hold regular informal gatherings for new people to come and find out what we are doing and how we are developing the Abundant Earth Community.

The time is now for change, so please come and get involved with us. We are all about change that is both productive and sustainable and you are the key players in this....

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We look forward to hearing from you all.

Logo and brand ...

Some of the members have been having a discussion about the way in which we might try to move things on a bit with regards to the branding of our project and ideas. We think that we would all like to be involved in this undertaking, and yet observe and understand the time constraints of many of the group that will form the core committee/group of the Abundant Earth Community. Creating a change will take time and the speed we can travel is often limited to the participation of our members, so we urge everyone to at least offer your suggestions based upon what we outline here. A newer member has committed an amount of his time and expertise already to come up with the image above. It is hoped that anyone else who has any ideas to come forward and make those suggestions. The idea is possibly not to get too trendy and committed to branding ourselves, as much as being able to quickly indicate our aims through a visual tool. 

I like the images that describe Earth care for example. Another suggestion is that an Acorn and or Oak tree might give a clue as to the structure and strength we hope our movement can achieve. We feel sure that Permaculture principles of Earth Care, People Care and Share of Resources are key to what we can invest in our journey. But we just don't know yet. We also hope that a Consensus Decision Making process can be how we make all of the major determining factors of our venture run smoothly and give everyone a voice. So could anyone who is determined to become a fully fledged member, please both sign in as a follower of the blog and other connection tools, (Twitter-Facebook-etc) and leave their thoughts in the comments box at the bottom of the post or by email. aec.lincs@gmail.com

The way this all works is entirely up to us. So please let us, the current participants and blog posters have your thoughts and let's see what magic we can make in our city, environment and world.

We also have to work on a final draft of our constitution so anyone needing access to dropbox and the other relevant information please just ask, there are no big secrets here....

We look forward to all comments and debate.

Love n light.

A.E.C. 

P.W.

A Cooperative learning event from last year.

Radical Routes/Seeds for change/Coop event.

  

As some of you may know there was a Radical Routes Co-operative event on in Nottingham last year around October, and I had made myself available to go both Saturday and Sunday for the benefit of both myself and the cooperative we are attempting to set up. For various reasons some people were not able to get to the event so on Saturday Mel and I met and we went in her car. It was held in the Hyson Green Youth Centre, close to where the famous Goose Fair is held each year.

Once we had checked in, had our second cup of tea (the first one became fouled by salt. What else would you put in a bowl on a table with a spoon in?) we made our way to the venue room upstairs. In a way I'm glad to say that the room was heaving with people. It means many people are interested in working in this cooperative manner. However it did make it a little more difficult to hear everything or concentrate as latecomers kept filing in. But the two facilitators were very adept at keeping the show moving and pretty well on time.

Consensus decision making.

C.D.M is a process of making decisions without voting and without pressure, which aims to create a solution everyone involved in the process can agree to. An essential part of C.D.M is the right of any individual taking part in the process to block the action of the entire group.

(Radical routes definition)

The facilitators drew a flow chart to show the stages and the directions of various actions and went on to fully explain the relevant sequences to be performed to get to a fully ratified decision by all members. They used the above previously agreed upon (Radical Routes definition) to show in practice how this would and can work effectively. They gave all attending opportunities to break off into smaller groups to work on example type projects for brief periods of the session, and then drew everyone back into the forum to share what they had experienced. I feel, as somewhat of a novice to this experience, that they were quite fair and yet systematic at their attempts to pack this developmental tool into the allotted time frame. Obviously a longer more dedicated session would have made the actual learning potentially easier to absorb, but on balance there were many sessions to get through. In reality Radical Routes, Seeds for Change and their other supporters were trying to offer an overview of the process at this time. For the more discerning of visitors they had set up booked sessions on a one to one with councillors/advisers.

I felt as though I had discovered a well intended forum for sharing, that was in the main able to deliver a very informative entry into the do's and don'ts of setting up cooperative ventures. From this session in particular I realised a very fundamental but obvious mistake on my previous thinking, and that was that consensus decision making does not include voting which is the democratic model. A surprise indeed, but one clearly needed.

Being a good facilitator.

Next was a session on how to be a good facilitator. Or a bad one depending on your abilities... The idea seems to be set about primarily doing plenty of homework and planning. Get to know our subject thoroughly. (I believe Angela and a few others probably know plenty about this, knowing know just how much effort they put into doing it). Then a good idea is to send out the agenda before meetings/events so that as many people as is possible come already up to some speed with what is going to be discussed. From what I heard it seems common to begin with a brief introduction and then a 'go round' of the various attendees. I saw in practice how this gets people to loosen up more and aid with further discussion intervals. Some people clearly had little to say or were purely observers, yet I felt able to interject and offer comment as freely as was needed for my questions to be answered. Next came the main demonstration of what the role of facilitators are and ways in which to see that some semblance of order is taken to keep the discussions flowing and productive. It seems that a facilitators role is not specifically to steer, but to attempt to get all the information brought out into the debate forum where all attendees can access that information through discussion. Another valuable point I heard, is that the facilitator is best to be as neutral to the debate topic as is feasible. Better to be disconnected completely so that they could arbitrate the fair share of discussions between people. There is an official service for this called A.C.A.S. But in terms of our cooperative venture we possibly need to constantly share this role between members, and thus avoid any one person directing events continually. This does and will as I saw take a lot of effort, so members must be somewhat committed to doing this if fairness and equality will guide our ventures. Finally the roles of the facilitator was to make sure the discussion was kept within pre agreed guidelines and then bring discussions to a point of close/evaluation and leave the rest to further meetings/discussions.

Our last session of the day was with a woman from Seeds for Change who talked to us about:

Setting up a cooperative.

Because we were all possibly involved in coops or thinking of setting up coops, she asked us to describe in brief detail what our reasons for attending the workshops was. Like Mel and I, many of the attendees were at the formative stages of contemplating feasibility and investigating options and sources of information and help. She then moved into describing the 7 guiding principles of cooperatives as outlined by the global cooperative movements. As with any organisations there are many different ramifications of what you are doing and what you expect to get out of that. Primarily cooperatives are set up for the benefits to come to the people actually doing the work, rather than shareholders and bosses. We were involved in small groups again to discuss and work on small problems, before we came back to the main forum where we then openly discussed our findings of those topics. She took us through both the benefits and the challenges of setting up and running cooperatives, and I felt rather full of knowledge by the end of the session. We talked specifically about business plans being put in place very early on, with room to amend them later on as the process evolved. The collective management was our next topic and we heard of the many examples of how people had done this to good effect and also the not so good. Primarily in a cooperative, a good environment and space for open free discussion is the best way to get everyone satisfied with a workplace where joy and fun can be had working together. Then we talked about the legal obligations and how they too needed to be undertaken before too much other work had been done on actually producing anything collectively.

To be honest, in quick summary, I feel that for our venture to work effectively, we all need to be doing and be seen to be doing some of the heavy work of organising the structure and formats for service outlets of this cooperative. This was very much stressed by the event in Nottingham and I tend to agree with it, even if it means I will possibly spend some considerable hours doing it. Research, and fact finding are the keys to this, as well as proper networking and transparency between ourselves.

 

Again I joined Phil and Angela on the Sunday to go to Nottingham, and we arrived at the Arts Centre just around the corner from the Saturday venue. Our first session somewhat covered one of yesterdays discussing the guiding principles of cooperatives and the benefits and challenges of starting and running one. Many new people were in attendance too so we got to network with both workers and housing cooperative ventures. Necki from the Eco-works in St. Anns (a cooperative allotment project) was one of the people I remember from having visited Nottingham with the Permaculture Lincoln group some weeks ago. 

 

How not to set up a cooperative.

This was our chance to work with some project sheets that gave us predetermined scenarios of a housing and a workers cooperative. We got into groups of 5 or 6 and set about reading and discussing the various ventures described. In truth our aim was primarily to attempt to discover what we each thought the faults and failings of those project were or likely to be. But the good thing was that we got to suggest our own ways of avoiding those possible problematic scenarios. I'm not too keen on the obvious one, which is not to bother at all. That said however, I felt as though the facilitator was able to help me realise just how hard it truly is to get to a point at which passions can be realised, where dreams become a reality and where people can with respect, work dedicatedly together on a joint venture. It is not as simple as people saying that they want to do something. There are fundamentals to be considered and undertaken way before any joint goal can be reached. (unless that goal is to agree to disagree) Thorough planning (god I hate this word...!) is needed to avoid the unnecessary complications that will come from lack of awareness and understanding the processes fully. A kind of learned wisdom resonating between the other guests was clearly that clarity and honesty between people were the first things to be set down as ground rules and further to be frank in discussing the consensus proposals for a clearly defined joint vision. 

 

The next session on the agenda was slide presentation by a member of the Unicorn Grocery cooperative in Manchester. The lady described the aims and objectives of the initial plan to provide affordable alternative food sources to people who didn't want to source everything from huge chain supermarkets. Obviously the financial strains of doing this and even considering being competitive in this aim were huge. But after some 17 years the shop is firmly on the city map. With a 50 strong membership (current and probationary) they are now able to pay themselves a handsome and respectable living wage. People of their community respect them and are engaged with them to help sustain the services they provide. They have expanded into many areas not only providing good locally sourced food, but training and teaching the ethical values of their cooperative spirit. Schools and organisations regularly participate in joint examples of this cooperation.

Again this brought to my mind so many new things that I had yet to consider with regards our cooperative ventures. To be truthful I can hardly remember much of the last session as my mind was fried with so much to take on board, and it would have been good if others had come along to enjoy it for themselves. I know Angela and Phil made notes, so all is not lost...

So in conclusion, I will list with bullet points what I noticed, that were flagged up for our attentions.

HERE.

• Facilitators of meetings need to get prepared.
• A good facilitator is unbiased/unattached from debate.
• Agendas are sent out in-time for members to research/read.
• The fairest system for a cooperative is C.D.M. (see above)
• All members need to go through a probationary period. (Potentially 6-12 months, via C.D.M.)
• Members need to be actively involved in the daily running.
• Members need to be active in C.D.M. and meetings.
• Before any work is done a constitution needs to be activated.
• Clear ethos and visions need to be defined in writing.
• All legal implications need to be addressed.
• A clear Health and safety policy has to be in place.
• A core management has to be decided and in place.

In summary, I really got a lot out of all of those sessions, even if some of it was being repeated as a thread through them all. The idea that we can get going before doing many if not all of these things above is remote and at best a little naïve. The Abundant Earth Community, our cooperative is going to have to be a very determinedly worked for collective venture. The benefits are clear, and even somewhat Utopian, however they are do-able. If we make our stand to be different enough and to grow from tiny seeds of work and effort, use proper planning and teamwork we can make our community the place to be both admired and replicated throughout the county, country and even the world.

Radical Routes Website 

Seeds for Change 

Friends; “let us be the change we wish to see in the world.”

Follow us on 

Twitter: @Abundant_Earth

Facebook: Abundant Earth Community  

Contact us

G-mail: abundantearthcommunitylincs@gmail.com

aec.lincs@gmail.com

Creating Connections.

Creating Connections.

As many of you know, Marcin Kolakowski one of the Abundant Earth Community founder members has been trying very hard to give much exposure to this project and show how he has been collaborating with other groups to get a web of connectivity between us all. His aim is much like our own, to see sharing be the way in which we all benefit from research and knowledge. I admire Marcin very much for this charismatic and charming way he has about himself, and the way in which he has fought to bring many ideologies to a place of significant cooperation.

Last Wednesday he invited Angela and myself to give a presentation alongside the architectural students that have been working with us on our A.E.C. project, and also topical speakers including the E.M.E.S.S. organisation, whom were set up in the 90's to look after preservation of old and ancient earth structure buildings. (Particularly those in Lincolnshire) The East Midlands Earth Structure Society, had been invited by Marcin to see what work his students in particular had been researching and working towards developing. And to provide a context for this work, Angela and I gave a 6 minute Pechakucha presentation. Pechakucha is a series of 20 slides from a projector delivered with dialogue, 20 seconds per slide. It gives a brief yet informative overview of the Abundant Earth Community, our aims and objectives. We spoke first and were followed by Mahmud, who gave a presentation on Light Clay. 

This is an alternative building method using equal amounts of weights of straw and clay mixed together and then poured into a shuttered container to create a wall. (See diagram) After a few hours the shutters are taken away and the wall smoothed and rendered with more clay before being left to dry. The clay is often sourced from the same site of construction, a few centimetres beneath the top soil of the ground.

Adam came along to talk to the audience about Rammed Earth. This method also uses locally sourced materials, a shutter is created and earth is rammed into place and compacted with machines or by hand tools if appropriate. This method is as close to CO2 neutral, it is a thermal mass collection device and can also be structural (load bearing) depending on certain criteria.

Jack was able to talk to us about Super Adobe. This is basically using locally sourced earth from the direct earth where the structure would be built and fed into long narrow sacks. A building made from bagged soil/earth. The bags are relatively inexpensive, vary in size and length and can also be biodegradable. Once filled they are laid on top of one another in a continuous loop, with barbed steel wire inserted between bags to help fix them and avoid slippage. It can support a huge amount of its own weight and even one person working alone can build this type of structure. Being so cheap and using local earth it could be easily providing shelter to the poor and to areas suffering climatic destructions. (It is even possible to use this method on the moon) Calearth.org

Ciaran gave us a very informative demonstration of Walter Segal's constructions. Walter, a British architect born at the beginning of the 20^th century once built a home in 1963 for approximately £800. It uses mainly a timber frame and panel type infill, much like old style Japanese houses, and is set only upon a slab concrete base. It needs almost no specific skill set to build them and is easily mounted in almost all environments. They can incorporate green roof technology like many other eco-build houses as well as rainwater harvesting.

Suman came up to give the conference a view of how they had incorporated many of our design brief ideas and their own ingenuity into their proposed eco-site plans and drawings. It was amazing to see just how far they have come in little more than three months. Nicknamed the 'Abundant Earth Architects', they have put together an impressive catalogue of ideas and research and data to be used in the future of sustainable design for modern buildings. Together with Dan and Fernanda, once our 'magnificent seven', they were joined by newer students joining the course from Brazil, Caio, Fernando and Isabela, and have set about creating sustainable designs for the environment to house our project criteria. We hope to build and farm following Permaculture principles, in a city environment. Create workspace for shared multi group usage and grow our own food and materials to be used in many of these workshops and project aims.

Marcin, a true visionary pioneer of sustainable architecture and design has been involved with A.E.C. from the beginning and is always keen to support the aims of the community, as is evident in his direction of these fine young architects.

Another former student Emily gave an interesting demonstration of Vernacular Architecture. Vernacular means, 'Built by the people for the people'. She described how many current buildings are not really fit for purpose, badly designed and not including enough consideration of the health or well-being of the people who would occupy them. She was able to talk a little about traditional buildings of the U.K. and how they had been designed clearly around a specific community value, single street layouts and village greens particularly. She highlighted a recently finished project in Leeds, the L.I.L.A.C. Angela and myself had previously met Paul Chatterton from that project in Bramley, Leeds at a CommunityLand Trust conference, and he personally invited us to a go see at their site. (We are hoping to arrange a visit in the very near future, so please express your interest to come with us by email)

DianeStarkey from an organisation called Longhurst Group talked briefly about Sustainable Homes and the many problems associated with passive type housing, mechanical forced air ventilation systems. A building designed to be low energy usage was observed and the people living there questioned about the pluses and minuses of the housing. It appeared that most people got used to the excessive noise of the various water harvesting and energy saving features but were dissatisfied with the build up of mould from excessive condensation that caused internal wood and paintwork to be compromised.

Jayne Bannister from the University came along to describe the University of Lincoln's participation in Marcin's suggested ventures, and told us about the plans for working with E.M.E.S.S. and students to build temporary structures on campus over the coming months or years. They have agreed in principle to allow a Mud 'n' Stud wall to be built, later this spring near to the Architectural suite.

Roger, from E.M.E.S.S. talked at length about how they had come to be formed and what they hoped to achieve in their work with older presently existing earth structure buildings, the work to regenerate interest in this fascinating method of building and their participation with other groups of like minded methods. They had even managed to move and relocate an old building previously due for demolition, near to the coast. (Skegness area)

It was also detailed how architecture can vary dramatically depending on the region where they are built, which seems obvious once that has been described. Cornish cottages, thatched roof houses, slate cottages and even peat buildings in Scotland. Where-abouts can have a serious affect on what materials are/were available to build from, and the construction methods employed.

Finally Marcin spoke at leisure about how he hoped that our joint projects could all be united in cooperation, skill sharing and networking opportunities. A question and answer forum was presented to the audience and many topics were raised for discussion, including the opportunity for being involved with the Abundant Earth Community project and learning from E.M.E.S.S, their valuable skills and knowledge base. They are running a course for interested parties in April, in Leicestershire, S.P.A.B. (Wed 30^th April- Thursday1^st May) Learning about earth walled buildings, repair of a stable block

A number of new connections were made and progress has been noted in collaborating with Marcin and the other groups present.

Thank you Marcin for inviting us to speak on behalf of A.E.C.

Please check out the links to the other groups and their various projects and data resources. (Click coloured text)

A.E.C. (P.W.)