Setting up & running a permaculture group...

... or any community group, be it relocalisation, Transition Towns, organic gardening, reskilling...

thought I'd do an infrequent series of posts on how I've gone about setting up and running some local community groups here; permaculture, seed saving, Transition Towns.

As things change in the world, and particularly as the economy creaks and groans and contracts more people will be looking for alternatives and wanting to connect with others in their community.

First it will be the early adopters, who are doing it pro-actively by choice, then it will be those having to do it by necessity.

So I'm kind of imagining that there will be an increase in interest about how to make community connections.

Now you don't need to be an expert in it to make it happen, you don't need a degree or any other qualifications - we've lost so much of our personal power to believing that you need an expert when we have the skills within our ourselves and within our own communities - that 'collective creative genius' that Transition Town folk go on about.

All you need to be is 1) concerned about the future, 2) wanting to do something positive about it and 3) be living in a community.

I've just sent an email to a whole load of people who are part of Permaculture Eudlo - a group I started in April last year. I also posted on our blog and on our facebook page too.

I sent out a reminder about our first meeting for 2012 in February - a reminder of the date, the time, the location and what will be happening.

We'd already decided as a collective group to use the time of our first meeting for the year to map out the rest of the year - to plan which guest speakers we want to hear from, which weekend activities we want to take part in (garden tours, permablitzes, social outings) and what skills we'd like to learn this year.

The email included a kick off list of ideas to get people thinking - and now its over to them to come up with what they want to do - to add to that list, to drive what they want their local Permaculture group to be.

Then to take responsibility to make that happen, sharing the load so a few don't get burnt out planning for the masses.

Here are some of the ideas I sent out - I got a lot of them from the Portland Maine Permaculture Group site;

• Soils and soil-building
• Plant and seed swaps
• Seed saving workshop
• Plant propagation
• Movie nights
• Growing & using mulches
• Making & using BioChar
• Medicinal plants
• Growing mushrooms
• Sprouts & sprouting
• Permablitzes – how to get the most out of them
• Transition Towns – what they are and how they work
• Home composting & worm farms
• Solar hot water & solar energy options
• Intro to Permaculture
• Permaculture principles
• Rainwater collection & storage
• Seasonal gardening
• No-dig gardens
• Permaculture networks & education
• Permaculture & backyard beekeeping
• Setting up & running co-operatives
• Green home construction
• Green home retrofit
• Health & wellbeing for Permaculturists
• A regional diet
• Resilient food systems
• Subtropical food gardening in a changing climate
• Intentional Communities & Eco-Villages
• Wild food foraging
• Local bush foods
• Plant & tree ID
• Dowsing
• Backyard chooks for eggs and/or meat
• Fermentation as a food preservation method
• Preserving food – eg jam-making
• A pattern language
• Cob ovens
• Solar ovens
• Herbal first aid
• Rocket stoves
• Traditional diets for the Subtropics
• ‘Invasive’ plants ID and eradication
• Knife and tool sharpening & care
• Basic building skills
• Building a ‘humanure’ toilet
• Biodynamics
• Pest management
• Permaculture projects for/with Children
• Basic bicycle maintenance & repair
• Zone 00: Personal resilience building
• Zone 00: Compassionate communication
• Zone 00: Living mindfully & in the present
• Green cleaning
• Options for non-electric refrigeration
• Natural disaster planning
• Basics of mending and sewing
• Designing and building with green "living" roofs

Excursions
• Visit local sites – Veggie Village, Yandina Community Gardens
• Visit Northey Street City Farm Organic Farmers Market on a Sunday morning
• Visits to Crystal Water Permaculture Village's monthly markets

Regularly activities
Eudlo Growers Group – Harvest Swap
Permablitzes (practical projects)
Member’s garden tours
Design brainstorms at people’s homes (ideas & advice)
Friday Morning Vegie Group

At our first meeting we'll get the butchers' paper out and the textas and start writing down what we want to see happen then people can vote to find the most popular ones and we'll start from there.

So don't be put off from starting a group if that is something you've been thinking about - make it clear from the start what your personal commitment will be and delegate and ask for help. Having one other person who you can pass the baton to helps immensely too.

Hope you found this helpful and if you're interested I'll keep posting about how to get started and how to keep a group going,

cheers,
Sonya