permaculture

[UPP <permaculturefr@free.fr>]

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