One more european PC convergence has been held with our hospitable friends in Czechia. This year the place was set in the city of Brno. More specifically at the educational PC-project of Rozmarynek, the same place as in 1999, at the EUPC 5.

We were 10+ participants from both west and east:

• Andy Langford and George Sobol, from the UK.
• Sofie van den Hende, from Belgium.
• Tony Andersen, Lisbet Nielsen and Poul Erik Pedersen, from Denmark.
• And Pavla Bourdais, Cestmir Holusa, Frantisek Kurtin, Marcel Susko, and Nick Wedler from Czechia / Slovakia.

Plus of course Dana, Danka, Lenka, Milan, Katerina and all you others who helped us at the convergence, both in front of and behind the scenes. Thank you to everyone!

As usual, our first meeting was to plan the content of the convergence. And the subjects we decided to talk about were:

• Presentation of the local educational projects of Lipka and Rozmarynek.
• National reports from the participants.
• Discussion of Diploma Procedures.
• Discussion of IPC 7 in Croatia next year.
• Discussion of PC Courses, accreditation and support east-west.
• Presentation: ‘Spiral Dynamics’. (by Andy L.)
• Presentation: ‘Foggage Grazing System’. (by Andy L.)

And then of course, there were also the more recreational, cosy, social activities such as:

• Evening dinners at various restaurants.
• Catching up on news with old friends over several glasses of slivovice and/or good czech beer, coffee, tea or ‘dobra voda’ into the late hours of the night.
• Attending a support party in downtown Brno, with lively bluegrass, latinjazz, and very dance-provoking retro ‘50- rock-and-roll music. The party being held in support of a claim for a referendum to be held, against EU-regulations demanding that Brno’s slightly curved railway main-station should be straightened out, as a condition for EU-trains to stop there…! (A Mission Impossible we permaculturists of course could only give our full and enthusiastic support).
• And then — not to forget — the lovely boat-trip up the local river, followed by a long and beautiful walk through fields and forests, to a very nice restaurant serving us all up with grilled fish from the open outdoor fire, with bread and salad, and dance music till late in the evening.

Lipka (‘Little Lime-tree’) is the mother-project of Rozmarynek, and a number of other educational projects in Brno. It is situated in a 3-storey bungalow with a garden. It has existed for app. 10 years now, and the whole organisation now employes app. 31 people. It has a very good reputation by the local authorities, and is used by all the schools in the region. As well as for adult school and education of teachers. Primarily in the fields of ‘learning about nature and environmental understanding’.

It is run by a professional board (no civil servants, or politicians), headed by the first teachers who were involved. Money comes in through courses and other payed activities. And by the staff being teachers themselves, their wages thus being payed by the municipality. The place is very popular with the children, as well as with everyone else. There are high-quality exhibitions in every indoor room, and the garden is as productive and varied as only a PC garden can be. School-classes at the age of 10-13 can plant up a small area as their own garden-plot for 2-3 years, for their own observations and eventual harvest.

Rozmarynek, situated in the suburb of Jundrov, west of central Brno, works in a similar way to Lipka, and has similar qualities, though the garden is more of a regular PC demonstration garden, with compost loo, grass roofed rabbit house, greenhouse for propagating plants, all sorts of unusual edible plants, herb spirals, etc. The place is also used by the czech / slovak PC association, for courses and other activities.

Since the organisation participants live seperated by large distances, board meetings are only held when needed. The rest is done by mail. There are 15 paying members, and the organisational work is generally quite a burden for the whole structure. There is no central office — it is more of a network. Money come in by selling books, membership subscription, and 10% off courses.

Courses are run in both Czechia and Slovakia — app. 4 of them each year. An evening class 72h design course at Rozmarynek has been very successful, especially sought by young mothers.

Several projects are on the go: Ekoplod (making machinery for non-compacting vegetable cropping) in Slovakia. Several site developments. Several schools with PC designs. A book with register of designers and teachers. A PC news magazine.

There is no national PC association, but a number of farm projects: ‘Yggdrasil’ cultivates 2-3 hectares, and has volunteers. Monthly demonstration of compost, flowforms, etc. They have a website (in flammish language). And a newsletter.

A smaller project is situated near Wellin, in french-speaking part of BG. With a small shop and ‘open days’.

In northern BG there is a project — ‘Foodforest’ (‘Voedselbos’) — with courses, and work-weekends every 2-3 months.

A new project — ‘Birdlo’(?) — is run by Filip Bronchart, inspired from a visit to Brazil.

Belgium has quite favorable funding possibilities towards tree planting, grey water cleansing, bioenergy (as well as sun-, wind-), projects against soil erosion, etc.

A council of management meets quarterly. Courses are run privately, through individual projects. The national association (NA) has status as ‘charity’, giving access to tax-refunds in connection with donations. Other PC projects can apply for use of this status under the umbrella of NA, against paying a percentage of the refund. There are 86 running PC projects all in all. The NA has 780 members. And a secretariate with 3 half-time employees. But generally, the NA receives too little support from the individual PC projects. The NA has its 21^st anniversary this year, which will be celebrated by a 5-day ‘Net-together’ in september, at Braziers Park.

Teachers Training Courses are being held.

A 4^th edition of ‘Permaculture Plot’ is being prepared. (UK’s PC-directory).

Andy L. is working on a new management structure, on the basis of his ‘Diploma WorkNet’. (Read of this later in the report).

Cooperation with GEN is being considered. Max Lindegger being a board-member of GEN. A ‘Global Ecovillage Training’ project is under consideration. The Diploma WorkNet has been presented at a meeting at Findhorn.

George Sobol has been working in the english workers’ educational association, and official accreditation of PC courses has been obtained, which is very advantageous. Also ‘blended learning’ (using internet) has been accredited.

Courses are run privately. Subsidies are available to unemployed a.o. But there is a lack of coordination, which has led to a number of courses being cancelled.

And lately, the NA received a great financial blow due to promises not kept in connection with a law-suit, which has led the association to adopt a much greater scrutiny of the activities going on under its ‘umbrella’.

The danish national association (NA) works by meeting the first tuesday of every month, in the copenhagen office. There are 50-60 paying members. 8-10 are active in the NA, at varying degrees of work input. There are some 400+ certificate holders, and 2 diploma holders. The NA makes 2-3 newsletters per year. Plus a yearbook in cooperation with Sweden and Norway.

The economy is continuingly difficult, especially since all forms of subsidies towards grassroot-environmentalism have been taken away by the 2_ year old right-wing government. The NA survives through attached companies giving off 10% of their turnover from payed design consultancy, etc. Bookselling and membership subs serve as minor forms of income. All the money go to pay house rent and stationeries, etc. (Thus, no room for wages in the NA).

The NA is holding itself free of activities involving tax and VAT, etc. But it has established 4 companies that can deal with such activities, each with independent economies and boards: A design consulting company (FirmaMentha), a production company making compost drums a.o. (pERMAtECH), a landscape entrepreneur company (APK - Anlægsgruppen Permakultur København), and a city garden network also offering design consultancy (ByhaveNetværket). These work independently, but pay off a percentage of their turnover to the NA, in exchange for being allowed to use ‘Permaculture’ as part of their campaign material. Each of the companies has one member in the board appointed by the NA.

3 courses are planned every year — to be held by FirmaMentha: A 3-days intro-course in the spring. A 14-days certificate course early summer. And a certificate course running over 3 months as weekend- and evening classes in the autumn, at the copenhagen office. Participation numbers have been rather low, but steady, though some of the courses have had to be cancelled in recent years. No subsidies are available from outside at present, so participants have to pay all the course expenses by themselves.

Denmark has close contacts with the PC associations in Norway and Sweden, with a yearly convergence in august and a mutual yearbook. The swedish and norse NA’s run several courses, one being a mutual cross-border course. The swedes also have developed certificate access through a working apprenticeship on-site. There are a good handful of site developments and PC farms. The norwegians have established a PC architecture design company (GAIA). The swedish NA has close contacts to the agricultural university in Lund, having established a.o. a ‘rehabilitation garden’ especially suited for stress-burnouts, near Malmø.

Diploma Procedures. (Presentation by Andy L.)

In general, the attainment of a PC Diploma requires a person to have worked with PC after their Certificate Course for a minimum of 2 years, and usually it takes longer.

In England, Andy Langford is promoting the ‘Diploma WorkNet’. Involved are also groups in Germany, Italy, Spain, Wales.

The method is based on ‘Action Learning’. Where conventional studies alternate with action/doing, reflecting on the results, and planning of new doings on the basis thereof. (As we all did learn to navigate in our social relations and domestic life, but nevertheless considered exclusive seniority techniques at conventional UK-universities).

The aim is to provide ‘a complete and credible alternative to college and university’. At the cost of app. 5.000 £ per student. To be payed along the road. Being itinerant. Attainable without the excluding demand of extensive amounts of paperwork. And perhaps in the future payable by LETS.

It is also a key notion that 3 diploma holders anywhere should be able to form a regional diploma-issuing body. Which should blend into a hierarchy of many reference-people available from below, whilst attached to an overlooking international reference group, with a legally detached Quality Assurance Board working independently on the sideline.

The Diploma WorkNet and this proposal for a new management structure will also be presented at the IPC 7 next year.

The whole international PC network has been developing through and by the decisions made on the International Permaculture Convergences (IPC): In the beginning there was the concept of ‘Permanent Agriculture’. Over the years this concept has been expanded with other forms of ‘Permanent Culture’, with bioregionalism, with urban permaculture, with LETS and other financial tools, and so on. All discussed and taken in via decision-making at the IPCs.

The IPCs generally take up discussions around course curriculums, diplomas, network building, communication, new initiatives, new PC concepts, presentations of new techniques, etc. And this coming IPC — IPC 7 in Croatia next year — seems to become no less crucial than the previous, due to several things such as the fact that it has been almost 10 years since the last IPC, and the fact that the whole PC network is currently undergoing a generational change.

The IPCs traditionally consist of four different events:

• A 72h certificate course.
• A tour around to local projects.
• An international convergence (for discussion of in-house PC matters).
• An international conference (which is open to the general public).

The IPC 7 is being planned to take place in a very beautiful, medieval town in Croatia, with high-quality facilities, and the croatian PC association has been planning for the event already since 2001, in cooperation with the european PC institute in Denmark. Wherein, the danes are taking care of funds and paperwork, administration, while the croatians take care of all the practicalities.

The exact place of the event, however, will only be told to those who have enrolled by prepayment of £ 50 per event before the end of this year (2004). This is in order to avoid previous troubles with IPCs being overrun by outsiders being only vaguely acquainted with PC. (This doesn’t apply, of course, to the ending Conference in Zagreb, which will be open to the public).

At present, the following presentations are already considered certain:

• PC Organisation / The 5^th Element. (Tony A.).
• Diploma Procedures and the Diploma WorkNet. (Andy L.).
• Presentation of concepts from David Holmgren’s new book. (David H.).

There will be needed a secretariate during the IPC for scribing, translating, and coordinating the whole event, while happening. For this there will be needed some persons, fluent in the english language. This work will not be paid, but there will be offered free participation in the tour, the convergence and the conference, with free accomodation as well. George and Andy will contact people in England. There will be needed 8 or more people, half of them to continue at the conference in Zagreb.

For assistance to the secretariate, presentation holders will be asked for key notes in advance, preferably on disc.

Can we get some female teachers for the course?

If too few have enrolled by New Year 2005, we may consider to cancel the course and the tour. However, the convergence and the conference will be held regardless of participation numbers.

Can the convergence be orchestrated by ‘Open Space’ technology? (Andy L.).

It has showed itself impossible for the danes to raise funds for participants from poorer countries. The croatians have been asked to try applying to funds themselves. Soros, UN, Local funds?

Eighteen months ago George Sobol received a renewed accreditation of the 72h certificate course as part of the authorised educational system in England. Including a new accreditation of the introduction course as well.

This could become a lever for seeking accreditation at EU-level of PC courses in general, for the whole of Europe.

The material is available. And George is right now situated in a good position to help. But he will be awaiting others’ initiative. This is just an announcement / a proposal.

Question: Would others be interested in working towards EU-accreditation? It takes three countries to cooperate — for example UK, Cz/Sl and DK.

An accreditation would open doors in other areas also. And would be useful to Denmark, where PC is largely marginalised. DK is definitely willing to write letters of confirmation and support, but can’t pull the waggon. CS might be able to get funding for teaching courses through accreditation, but need further discussions internally.

Andy L. presented a concept of ‘Spiral Dynamics’ based on the book ‘A Theory of Everything’ by Ken Wilbur. It is a model of understanding the historical development of mankind through various stages of consciousness and thinking patterns.

Andy L. presented a grazing system called ‘foggage’. It is an old traditional system, where animals are kept outdoors all year, and there is no need for growing and storing winter-fodder. Pioneered by Arthur Hollins (?) in the UK, and now taken up on experimental basis where Andy lives, at Braziers Park.

The following was decided at EUPC 6 in 2001, Slovakia, and is still valid:

Until something else is decided, future EUPC’s will take place in Brno, The Czech Republik, since we there have found both the facilities, the economy, and the organisational structure best suited for undertaking these events.

Until something else is decided, the European Permaculture Institute, responsible for initiating, preparing and administrating the funds for the EUPC’s, will be seated with the danish permaculture association:

www.permaculture-europe.org

www.ipc7.org

www.permakultur-danmark.dk

www.permaculture.org.uk

July the 25^th, 2004

Poul Erik Pedersen, DK