[Pil-pc-oceania] Interest in residential communities...

[permaculture at apollobay.org.au]

Hello Niree

Where abouts are you in Victoria?
There is quite a number of intentional communities in Victoria, and a vast
history of them too (my parents were involved in one in the 70's).

We're holding a Sustainable Communities workshop in Apollo Bay on August
20th & 21st, and one was just held in Melbourne on the 9th of June.  If
you're interested in the Apollo Bay one, I'll send you the details.

Cheers
Fern Rainbow
Otways & Coast Bioregion

Original Message:
-----------------
From: niree bingham nireeb at gmail.com
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 04:03:33 -0700
To: Pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org
Subject: [Pil-pc-oceania] Interest in residential communities...


Hi all... since we are talking about centraliasation.......

After moving to a new area with my partner and son, and feeling the serious
lack of connected community in my new area, I feel compelled to enquire
about interest in people living, at least part, communally.  I am not
talking about 10 families under the one roof but more in a situation where
the family unit is nurtured but there is connection to other families or
individuals.  i have my own ideas about concious communities, or multiple
ocupancies, or whatever you would like to call them and one day I would
llike to be a part of one.  Personally the idea means more than just buying
land together because then it is cheaper. I have also come accross a number
of people or families in my time who are also working towards this 'one
day'.  It seems though that these people and myself have trouble connecting
on a serious lets-get-this happening kind of level.

I understand northern NSW has a much larger culture of this than anywhere
else in Australia, but from my experience many of the communities these days
no longer have much sharing of things (activities, tools, enterprise,
industry, whatever) except for maybe a tractor that gets used mostly for
slashing large expanses of grass and a community house that gets used for
the monthly meeting. Not that I am trying to degrade these communities or be
cynical but rather that i am trying to understand what makes tham more
'community' than all the next door neighbours except that they share a
title. (and I only have experience of a few)

So my enquiry is along the lines of:
-is anyone interested in developing land together as residential community
-what are peoples ideas about how these can work
-can anyone point me in the direction of good resourses
-why have they not taken off in victoria (or other states but Vic is my
interest) so much
-is anyone interested in getting some kind of discussion going about it
-are there many people who would like to do something like this but we all
just dont know each other yet
-who has experience with community models and what works and what doesnt.
-is it anyone elses experience that the ones that work the best are
christian ones and that without the idea of selfless dedication to a higher
god that maybe people are just not quite ready to share like this yet
-even hearing from people who have their own family patch, are there times
when you feel like having 'this much land' is not quite right for one family
and it could support more and there are all of these projects that would get
done if there were just more of us here.  What are those projects how would
a 'community' help,  how many families would do the job

etc etc etc

my aim is to unite, in some way people who may like the idea of 'making a
community' in victoria (or other)

Thanks in advance... I hope to hear from many people and hopefully people
feel this is very relevant to PC discussion.


-- 
Niree Bingham

Greenweave Landscape Architecture and Sustainable Property Design

0407 808 852


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