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  • From: UPP <permaculturefr@free.fr>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] IPC teleconferencing
  • Date: Mon, 31 May 2010 11:14:30 +0200

Hallo all ,

The tone and subjects of some recent posts have inspired me to wish to communicate the following , basically some news PmC from the francophone areas of Europe and a plea .

We are experiencing explosive growth in interest , projects and courses , after years of pushing that stone by me and others its now rolling . We have both a vision and a design for aiding and guiding this development , here are some aspects :-

*Totally guided by the ethics and also by censensus and non-violent communication
*Not promotion of PmC per se but creating profound social change using PmC as our tool
*A spirit of "extended family" (in the best sense of the term), interconnected and integrated .
*Flatland , no heirarchies and no Superstars , although with respect for experience .
*To advance rapidly but delicately , with respect for local nuance of culture and local PmC actors .

PmC has been developing in France since 1987 , we have competent designers and teachers . Our approach with courses is to develop teams of teachers , each trained in PmC in general but with their own speciality areas , all intergrated . A nuance of this is that the teachers and designers tend not to do a lot of self-congratulatory self-promotion , preferring to be part of the team . Less the I and more the We .

The French in general differentiate strongly between amateurs and professionals , a lot of our work goes to ensuring that the image we present and what we do is seen as professional , only in this way can we work really effectively .

I have a personal take on our PmC ethics , when , and this is often , I am approached to give a PdC in different countries I take the time to see who is there already and what they are doing , if I find that there are competent people or projects already in place then I pass the contact to them . I feel I cannot justify slashing the stratosphere into shreds unless I really have something of fundamental importance not available locally . Thanks to nearly 20 years of designing and teaching my level of expertise may be beyond the local resource but sufficient to justify my voyage ? Often not . Some distance teaching and support is often sufficient .

So.......

There was a tentative from outside France to organise several PdC's with 5 or so Australian Pmc teachers , this was subsequentlly cancelled and now spattered all over the internet are announcements for these courses and their subsequent cancellation , its made us look amateur . There is to be a course with Rosemary Morrow , great, but due to a lack of communication by the organiser with us this now falls around the same dates as the Euro PmC convergence and the Perma-fest , a waste .

Then we have the hyper-marketing style of the above and by someone else who is announcing a " Tour of France " with a style reminicent of some sort of Rock Star . culturally the french tend to be unimpressed by this and again it makes the people on the ground look amateur and I am frankly fed up of having to try and explain things to people .

All that and then we have the prices of courses , those of the "superstars" tending to be twice to three/four times the local price , again , questions asked . Our approach here is to keep the courses accessible to all , we are not interested in just teaching to some sort of eco-bourgeoisie . In fact soon we hope that our courses will be "contribute what you want" . Personally for the last couple of decades my approach has been to ask for my expenses + a share of any surplus from course fees , if there is any . People do the maths , 20 people at €900 = a LOT of money , where does it go , what is it used for , again me and others having to try and explain/justify and its not our job .

So a plea ...... many countries have in place PmC organisations, designers , teachers , infrastructures , although perhaps these haven't done a lot of self-promotion , I feel it is important that if I go to play in their playground , that I respect what they are doing and INTEGRATE my activities with theirs before , on the ground and AFTER .

And an invitatation :- to the Euro PmC convergence in Belgium , one thing we hope to discuss is integration of PDC's at a pan-Euro level and also creating a pan-European PmC "alliance" to start effecting change at a governmental level , through the ballot box . And to the Perma-fest where we get together to have some fun , music and some chat , just the 1000 of us this year , we still have to limit the numbers for the moment .

see here www.permaculture.be

Thank you for reading this and to Lawrence for having created the space that I have used to express myself .

Steve Read
www.permaculturefrance.org





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