Are you a member of the Permaculture Association who runs any kind of permaculture project in the UK, whether it’s working with kids or adults, land based, urban, rural, or online? If so, then we would like to welcome you to join our monthly LAND and Member Project online calls!
The LAND and Member Project calls have been running on the last Wednesday of the month for a full year now. They have served as a source of connection, inspiration and support for our members who run permaculture projects and LAND centres, particularly during these extraordinary times when meeting in person has been so difficult.
We now have a full programme of calls for the whole of 2021, which is packed full of project tours, presentations, design ideas and support, interactive sessions with plenty of opportunity for chat and questions.
Our next online gathering, Building a Toolkit for Local Projects is on Wednesday 30 June at 3pm
This is an interactive session, facilitated by Steve Charter and Marianne Lindfield of the iACT project, which the Permaculture Association is a partner of. Funded by Erasmus, the iACT project is creating an online Good Practice Guide, toolkit, blended learning programme, participatory research and mapping system to support the establishment and development of LAND centres and practical permaculture projects across Europe.
In this collaborative design session, Steve and Marianne will be asking what you consider to be best practice, what resources you would have found most useful when setting up your project, what ongoing support you need and how to make this information accessible and engaging. To be there, register for Building a Toolkit for Local Projects.
Our last online call was hosted by Matt Swarbrick of Henbant Community Farm in Wales. For a taster of what to expect at a LAND and Project call, watch his brilliant presentation about how Henbant came to be, the amazing regenerative practices at the farm, their plans for the future and why Henbant is a wonderful place to live and work.
https://youtu.be/o90lNMAetUA
The LAND and Member Call Programme for 2021
The calls are on the last Wednesday of the month between 3- 4.30pm. There will be time at the end of each session for questions and project updates. To be sent a zoom link for these and future calls, please email Kathryn to add your name to the LAND and Member Project Calls mailing list.
28 July - Designing for Urban Spaces with Molly Kampmann
Join Molly Kampmann on a tour of her urban Permaculture projects, all within a 20 minute cycle of Angel in the City of London. Alara Permaculture Garden a haven of grapevines, fruit trees and biodiverse fruit and vegetables in the heart of King’s Cross. She also has experience designing and implementing for her rooftop, as well as for a community garden, a couple of guerilla gardens, and at a city farm. This is sure to be an excellent session for anyone interested in urban design.
25 August - A virtual Tour of Abundant Earth with Wilf Richards
Wilf will take us on a virtual tour of Abundant Earth, a 15 acre productive smallholding in County Durham. Not only do the Abundant Earth workers coop run a permaculture market garden, a successful veg box scheme and a craft, design and education centre, they also work closely with their community and manage the North East Permaculture Network. Wilf is an experienced permaculture educator and diploma tutor.
29 September - Designing your project, a LAND Tutor support session with Tomas Remiarz
Tomas is an experienced permaculture educator, Diploma tutor and author of Forest Gardening in Practice. He has supported several LAND learners with their design work to become fully accredited LAND Centres. In this session Tomas will explain the role of a LAND tutor and the support that they can offer you on your journey to becoming a LAND centre. There will be an opportunity for you to ask Tomas any questions you may have about your design work and the development of your project.
27 October - Discover Whistlewood Common with Katherine Parrish
Whistlewood Common has 10 acres of land, with many varied spaces, a pond, a stream, a community orchard, a straw bale roundhouse, a kitchen, a community garden, a forest garden, a natural play area. We also have a diverse income stream from hiring out the space to running workshops and courses to having a forest school nursery on site. Then there’s the wildlife habitat and animals to consider. Managing all these areas and diverse activities brings its own challenges and it is not always easy. Katherine will be talking about the web this creates and the way Whistlewood Common tries to balance it all!
24 November - The Medicinal Forest Garden with Anne Stobart
Anne Stobart, herbal practitioner and grower will talk about medicinal plants in the context of permaculture design, drawing from her experience creating and maintaining a medicinal forest garden with Holt Wood Herbs. She is developing the Medicinal Forest Garden Trust and offers short online courses on design with medicinal trees and shrubs.
29 December - Festive Social
This will be an opportunity to grab a cuppa and a mince pie and to reflect on our project experiences over the last 12 months. What have been our successes and what would we do differently next time? We will also have a look ahead to begin forming our vision for the coming year and what that might look and feel like. There will also be plenty of time for bad cracker jokes and any stories that you’d like to share.
We really hope that you feel inspired to join us for what is certain to be an action packed year of calls.