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 .