Since I have a Permaculture Institute USA certificate (from Peter Bane), I
assumed that everyone who offered certificates were also through PCI-USA.
If not, then what *are* the certificates that other teachers hand out?
I vote yes on a national gathering. At minimum a virtual national
gathering via Google Hangout or another online web conferencing service,
which would make it a very small barrier for participation. This web
conferencing service looks to host up to 200 participants for free: http://anymeeting.com/Free-Web-Conferencing-Features.aspx. I think an
invitation and agenda from a coalition of well recognized and respected
certifying teachers and practitioners (i.e. many on this list) would be
well-received and is a logical starting place. Periodic (quarterly,
semi-annual, annual) web conferences would be very easy to do and while
it's not a continental convergance, it's definitely better than nothing.