permaculture

[Russ Grayson + Fiona Campbell <pacedge@magna.com.au>]

Permaculture collegues...

I have only yesterday returned to Sydney from a visit to Crystal Waters
village, the
Seed Savers Network in Byron Bay and Permaculture International Limited
(PIL),
publishers of the Permaculture International Journal (PIJ). So my
apologies for the
lateness of this posting about what appears to have been a lively online
discussion.
Let me clarify a point about my comments following... I speak for
myself, based on my
own observations, and do not speak for PIL or the PIJ.

ROS JENNINGS LEAVES
Before I respond to other issues, I want to let you know that Ros
Jennings, the
general manager of PIL, is soon to leave to work with Aboriginal
communities in
western New South Wales. Ros has put a great deal of effort into
reorganising PIL and
the production of the PIJ. She came into the organisation to find it in
need of reorganisation and she has been successful in accomplishing this
for what could only be described as miserable pay which most of us would
probably refuse to work for.

PIL/PIJ
The PIL office in Lismore is housed in an old farmhouse on land owned by
Southern Cross University and desitined for use, as their Cellulose
Valley project, for medicinal herb production in association with the
university's courses in natural therapies. While there, I participated
in a meeting with the staff, PIL board members and a young woman who is
considering taking on Ros Jenning's role as general manager.

The Permaculture International Journal is not presently produced in the
PIL office. Editor,  newspaper journalist Eve Stinton, takes full
production reponsibility for producing the journal, and editorial
control, from her own home.

COMMENTS
The following comments, based on my observations, are offered to provide
some context
to comments made by participants in this online discussion.

All PIL staff work part time with most workers doing an equivalent
amount of voluntary work to maintain oparations at PIL. There are staff
roles in book and
PIJ distribution and administration/ accounts (half a day a week)/
bookkeeping, wages,
data entry/banking and funds processing, database management, data
entry/
enquiries, data entry, global directory, administration, overseeing of
work for unemployment benefits placement.

PIL and the PIJ, which PIL publishes, has always been a financially
marginal
organisation. While there is no present likelihood of the PIJ going out
of production,
the publication is hampered by a lack of funds and, recently, by
problems with the
printer - this last issue is being remedied.

The critical need for the PIJ is to expand sales, preferably
subscription sales. They
have recently started to supply bundles of PIJ to private resellers -
perhaps people
interested in assisting the PIJ could consider this practical form of
helping the
journal.

In Australia, magazine publishing is usually a risky, insecure business
because of the
small market (we have 18 million people in Australia, not all of them
avid readers of
permaculture or 'green' magazines) and the cost of commercial
distribution in a
country the size of the United States. Here, the PIJ is facing
increasing competition
for the reader's dollar , with journals like Grass Roots and Earth
Garden (both
long-running, rural-oriented sustainable living journals which sometimes
cover
permaculture subjects), Greenhouse Living (a new 'green lifestyle'
magazine with
considerable overlap with PIJ), ReNew (appropriate technology magazine
with occasional overlap with PIJ) and Green Connections, a national
magazine focusing on permaculture, community, green economics and local
government initiatives (some overlap with PIJ but aimed at a slightly
broader readership).

PIL is a severely, financially underresourced organisation, which limits
what it can do.

GLOBAL DIRECTORY
The global directory is time consuming and expensive to produce,
incurring considerable costs in postage and phone calls to verify
listings.

The directory is published as a service to the international
permaculture community
and, in my experience, serves as free advertising to those listed. In
the online
discussion, I read that one commentator implied that PIL could pay
people for listing
them. Usually, it's the other way around with commercial listing
services.

My other comment about the global directory is that it is cheap,
considering that
commercial business directories cost a great deal of money to buy - an
Australian media directory, for instance, sells for in excess of
AUD$300. This reflects the real production costs.

I doubt that the selling price of the global directory does more than
cover production
costs. PIL simply does not have the organisational resources to have
someone working
on the global directory all the time or even at frequent intervals.

As to the accuracy of the contacts in the directory, the primary
responsibility for
this lies with the individuals and organisations listed. Prompt
notification of
changes to contact details increases the chance that they will be listed
on time.

PIJ WEBSITE
The PIJ website was taken offline because the information was outdated.
It was thought
better to remove the site than to perpetuate out of date information.

Issues around the website include its expense (I am confident that PIJ
would accept
any donations to support a new website) and the fact that website
maintanance is not
written into the job description of any of the staff. This reflects
PIL's status as an underresourced, overworked organisation.

One of the principles of permaculture is to be economically viable. If
this type of work can only be done on a voluntary basis, then we haven't
moved anywhere towards a realisation of this principle. This works
against permaculturalists developing a right livelihood. The outcome of
this would be continued reliance on grants and donated sources of
income.

I beleive that the website is likely to be revived when resources are
available. I do not know if the global directory will appear on it.

ACTING BEYOND CAPACITY
I believe that PIL has entered a situation with which I have some
familiarity. It is simply that, as an undercapitalised, overworked and
underresourced community based organisation, PIL has exceeded its
capacity to accomplish the job it has taken on.

This is not a new situation for small community organisations. The
future depends upon whether the management and staff can restructure so
as to deal effectively with it or whether they fail to recognise an
overworked organisation, fail to effectively address what they are doing
and bring their tasks back into the parameters of their capacity. I
believe that the PIL staff and board of management are aware of the
organisation's situation and have the ability to plan accordingly.

Allow me to explore what I believe to be the future of PIL/ PIJ. To do
this, picture the organisation as a donut - the round type with the hole
in the middle - along the lines described by British businessman and
author, Charles Handy, in The Empty Raincoat.

The hole represents the core activities of the organisation. For PIL, I
believe that this core consists of a task and a service. The task is
publication of the PIJ. The service is one of networking  with the
global permaculture movement and networking with entities on the
movement's fringe and in society.

The non-core or periphery contains a range of  activities, the most time
consuming and costly probably being the PIJ book sales and distribution
service.

My guess as to what might happen at PIL? Well, I think they are likely
to assess their operation, identify what are core and peripheral
activities and take the decision to focus on the core and shed the
periphery. That should free up resources to improve the core activities.

Time will tell whether this scenario becomes fact.

THANKS TO PIL STAFF
At the meeting I attended with PIL staff, most of whom are young women,
I found their enthusiasm and dedication to the organisation and to the
PIJ to be inspiring. I wish that they could get greater recognition (and
remuneration) for their efforts and I extend to them my appreciation for
their commendable work and acknowledge their service to the permaculture
community.

A FEW OTHER OBSERVATIONS
1. There have been comments online about difficulty in contacting PIJ.
Their international phone number at the PIL office (not the PIJ editor)
is: 61 2 6622 0020. Fax 61 2 6622 0579. Email: pcjournl@nor.com.au

Please be patient awaiting replies as the staff are very overworked.

2. The Permaculture Institute is now based in Stanley, Tasmania, where
Bill Mollison lives. They issue supplies of  permaculture design course
certificates to teachers.

The Tagari farm, where the Institute was based, is occupied by the
Permaculture Research Institute and serves  as a venue for permaculture
courses.

3. Crystal Waters village shows signs of maturing as a community.

Residents are attempting the difficult task of building up their
livelihoods ? not easy is a community which is relatively isolated.
Green Harvest, the horticulture tool, book and seed company run by Jeff
Michaels and Francis Lang, continues to trade successfully and is about
to release its new catalog.

Max Lindegger no longer offers permaculture design courses. These are
now offered at Crystal Waters through Sustainable Futures (Morag Gamble
and Evan Raymond - syzygy@squirrel.com.au) and Max does some teaching in
them. Max offers advanced permaculture design courses focused on
ecovillage design. Robyn Clayfield (Earthcare Education) was teaching a
course while I was at Crystal Waters, so I could not interrupt her to
verify that it was to be her last PDC. I was told that Robyn plans to
teach advanced courses focusing on teaching skills and facilitation.

The Global Ecovillage Network for this region of the planet is based at
Crystal Waters.

4. The ongoing discussion among long-standing permaculture teachers
about permaculture design course fees and the quality of educational
outcomes of PDCs continues.

As most permaculture teachers know, planning, obtaining teaching
resources, advertising, renting course accommodation, paying teachers
and other expenses add to the cost of running PDCs. There is growing
concern here that the teaching of these courses is becoming increasingly
unviable because fees seldom reward course providers adequately - that
means that courses are too cheap. It may be more than specualtion that
this has something to do with the fact that some long- established
teachers  are no longer offering PDCs.

Also discussed among permaculture edcuators are incidents of complaint
about poor quality teachers.

The issues of course fees and teacher quality are delicate and have
aroused passions in previous discussions on this list. The fact that
they persist, however, suggests that they are real issues for Australian
permaculture teachers. Perhaps, now that the discussion has restarted,
something might eventuate to address them and to provide some quality
assurance for potential permaculture students.

5. The Seed Savers Network now has its own permanent premises in Byron
Bay on Australia's subtropical east coast.

Directors, Michel and Jude Fanton, have started the development of the
premises into a seed saving centre where training and a limited amount
of growing out of species will take place. Already, a large pond and
raised gardens have been constructed. International aid workers receive
seed saving training at the new premises.

Operations at the centre are carried out by a number of volunteers.
Contact: seedsave@om.com.au

...Russ Grayson

---------------------
PACIFIC EDGE
Permaculture & Media Services
Russ Grayson and Fiona Campbell
PO Box 446, Kogarah NSW 2217 AUSTRALIA

Phone/ fax   02-9588 6931   (IDD-61+2+9588 6931) Email:
pacedge@magna.com.au

WWW: http://www.magna.com.au/~pacedge/

PERMACULTURE/ COMMUNITY BASED ESD: permaculture education + Australian
City Farms and Community Gardens Network (NSW contact) + organic
gardening training + EarthWorks training (community waste minimisation
training) + overseas development assistance project services.

MEDIA: publication design + desktop publishing services  + journalism/
photojournalism
(global development; environment and society; social change; sustainable
community
development).