NFA Spring Gather-in Proposals
- See also About Gather-in 2016
Dear NFA Member,
Visitors to the community ask,
“what are the main projects and conversations taking place in the community?”
The Gather-In on Saturday 14 May is an exploration in this direction. Part of the event is about collectively prioritizing projects for the coming year through the NFA Focus and Funding Awards.
The three projects that made an application for the Awards are as follows:
- Consultation Phase Coordination Circle Proposal
- Towards Carbon Neutrality in the Findhorn Community
- ZeroWaste Moray 2026 – Feasibility Study
The proposal details follow. Read them from the perspective of prioritising them – which one calls out to you? What resonates? You will be able to vote for them all with our online ranking process.
If you need more information or clarification about a proposal attend tomorrow’s Gather-In to see their champion’s presentations.
NFA Focus and Funding Award Proposals
Proposal: Consultation Phase Coordination Circle Proposal
Village Model: Governance
Name Community Change Working Group (CCWG) (Francine, Dürten, Adele and Anna)
NFA affiliated group
Email Address Phone Number
01309 691770
Issue
The continuation of the CCWG’s work; collating feedback from the community (organisations and individuals); hopefully approval for a new community governance structure that is more fit for purpose to the on-going evolution of our community.
Proposal
The task of the CCWG is to initiate feedback and dialogue about the proposal as presented to the community Monday April 11th and refine the proposal. The group also needs to co-create an implementation plan and a process where the community can decide whether to adopt the final proposal or not. The CCWG will create a ritual to mark the change. The consultation phase is set to complete by the end of September this year.
Who benefits if your proposed project / initiative was carried out?
The whole community, individuals and organisations and ultimately the world as our community becomes more functional.
What kind of community support would you like?
Enthusiastic awareness and energetic support, Money
What is the full project cost? Ideally £6,000
How much would you like the NFA community to contribute? Partial – £500
Proposed Start Date Proposed Completion Date
4/15/2016 9/30/2016
Your Support Network
Supervision; working as a group; mandated by the NFA and the Foundation
If you didn’t get NFA community support will you do the project / initiative anyway?
Yes
Are you happy to be accountable to the NFA community?
Yes
NFA Focus and Funding Award Proposals
Proposal: Towards Carbon Neutrality in the Findhorn Community
Village Model: Nature & Ecology
Name Roger Doudna on behalf of Park Ecovillage Trust (PET)
NFA affiliated group
Email Address Phone Number
01309 690381
Issue
Last December 195 nations in Paris agreed that global temperatures must not rise more than an additional 2 degrees Celsius during this century if catastrophic climate change is to be averted. For this ‘Paris Agreement’ to be achieved, it will require the active support of ‘ordinary people’, especially those who describe themselves as ‘ecovillages’. Several groups here, including Park Ecovillage Trust (PET), have signed the ‘Paris Pledge’ to do just that.
Proposal
In my role as Chair and ‘carbon neutrality guy’ on PET, I am keen to put teeth into the ‘Paris Pledge’ by promoting and superintending our collective path towards ‘carbon neutrality’ – i.e. that we at the Park and Cluny communities create no more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than we remove, and hence that our net impact on climate change is zero or better.
To that end, it would help enormously to know just what our current carbon footprint actually is. Goran Wiklund, NFA member and sustainability consultant in Sweden, has kindly offered to do a current calculation thereof. Once we know what our collective footprint actually is, we will be better prepared to break it down into ‘bite size chunks’ and take steps to reduce &/or improve it.
As many of you know, I attended the UN ‘climate summit’ in Paris last December. While there, I learned from Albert Bates, Findhorn Fellow, room mate and climate expert from The Farm community in USA, that if we included the reforestation work of Trees For Life, it is likely that Findhorn’s footprint is now actually ‘carbon negative’ – i.e. that we remove about 10% more carbon from the atmosphere than we collectively produce. In this respect, we are amongst a small but growing group of ecovillages throughout the world that comprise a constructive and ‘holistic’ antidote to the global warming of the planet.
Regardless of just how ‘carbon neutral’, or indeed ‘carbon negative’, we may actually be, Park Ecovillage Trust exists to ‘advance environmental and social sustainability’ here. In keeping with these aims, we want to invite all who live or work at the Park and Cluny to become more fully aware of the carbon implications of y/our actions. We do this so that you can either reduce your footprint or ‘offset’ it by contributing to bona fide developing world projects that will themselves reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Those wanting more information &/or wishing to measure your carbon footprint, here is the link to a calculator used by Resurgence magazine (created by Satish Kumar’s son Mukti Mitchell) that will tell you what sort of stuff matters (energy use, transport, food, waste, etc). You can complete it in about 10 minutes. FYI, the average UK resident emits about 10 tonnes of CO2 per year. http://www.resurgence.org/education/quickcalc.html
Those wishing to calculate your footprint, even if just for a particular flight, &/or the footprint of your group & its activities can go to a Swiss site recommended by Goran with which he collaborates in his own work with businesses: https://www.myclimate.org
This group also invites you to ‘offset’ your emissions by contributing to certified and monitored projects in the developing world that will both improve conditions there and help reduce global emissions.
It will help hugely if you send Goran and I your own footprint calculation for inclusion in his study.
PET invites you to join us in this and other ongoing efforts to create a more sustainable world!
Who benefits if your proposed project / initiative was carried out?
Beneficiaries of achieving carbon neutrality at Findhorn include all those who live here and those who look to us to lead the way towards a more sustainable world.
What kind of community support would you like?
Enthusiastic awareness and energetic support, Money
What is the full project cost?
Full
£1500
How much would you like the NFA community to contribute?
Full £1500
Proposed Start Date Proposed Completion Date
7/1/2016 11/1/2016
Your Support Network
Yes, PET supports this project. Goran has pledged his support, as has Michael Shaw who did an informal footprint study some years ago. Alex Walker has sent us the ‘ecological footprint’ study done 10 years ago. PET Board has blessed this initiative, but not yet broken it down into its constituent parts where support is concerned.
If you didn’t get NFA community support will you do the project / initiative anyway?
Yes
Are you happy to be accountable to the NFA community?
Yes
Proposal: ZeroWaste Moray – Feasibility Study
Village Model: Culture, Nature & Ecology, Economy
Name Ariane Burgess
Individual NFA Member
Email Address Phone Number
01309 691841
Issue
Do you wonder what kind of planet children being born today will inherit? I do, almost every day. I once I saw a film about children who had to pick through fields of rubbish to find food and that was after the pigs had had their turn.
As The Park part of our community identifies itself as an ecovillage wouldn’t it be great if by 2026 Park Ecovillage was a ZeroWaste community. To make this possible global and local systems will have to change – what a great way to have a global impact.
Proposal
This proposal is to work from July to December 2016 on a feasibility and research study to put the elements in place to start the Park Ecovillage and Moray-wide ZeroWaste Initiative leading to ZeroWaste Park 2026 and a massively reduced waste footprint in Moray.
The funds from any NFA award would cover the time for
– project research and design – including research on what can be removed from the waste-stream.
– engaging community members in the project
– making grant applications for funding to cover the full-scope project
With sufficient community support and successful grant funding, the project would start later this year and go through several phases until those living in The Park successfully meet the defined target. We could probably do it by 2026, possibly sooner, it depends on how much each of us chooses to play our part.
The project will work in the Community, Moray and Scotland. It will collaborate with Community members, Moray Council, the Scottish Government and local organisations to reduce the amount of waste we collectively produce. The project partners include Moray Council, tsiMoray Environmental Forum, Findhorn Hinterland Trust and Ekopia, and potentially Waste Busters, Waste Watchers, Earth Time and Transition Town Forres.
The feasibility study would start in The Park were we’d like to engage at least a third of the people living here (approximately 44 households) to participate. After talks with key people in Moray Council, a suggested action to begin with is to reduce the Green Bin pick up from every two weeks to every four weeks. While that is a clearly measurable action it can’t just start. We need to work together to find out what’s going into our Green Bins, why and in what other ways we could get the needs and wants that generate that waste met.
In addition to the Green Bins, the project will also work with Park-based organisations to set up ways for residents to dispose of the organic materials including garden and food waste on site.
The project will also work with the businesses in the Park to reduce the amount of waste they produce.
One aim in the long term for the project at The Park is to create one or more self-sustaining jobs for maintaining the systems put in place.
The Park is a good place to start as we have a clearly defined geographic area and a high level of community interaction. It is intended that what starts in the Park could be used as a model for other willing communities.
The project will also include a geographical mapping element intended to inform all of us in Moray of how our waste is disposed of and the impact it has on the environment. The mapping will extend to the whole of Scotland to show where waste that cannot be recycled locally would have to be transported to be recycled.
There will also be an element of lobbying for legislation that minimises the amount of plastic material that cannot be recycled in Scotland coming into the country in the first place.
Material waste discarded by humans is only one part of waste that has a detrimental impact on the environment, however, we need to start somewhere and once we accomplish phase one we can expand the project scope.
Who benefits if your proposed project / initiative was carried out?
The ecovillage community by being able to walk our talk even more.
Other communities that could adopt what we learn here for their own community.
Moray Council would have a model to adapt for other communities and also reduce current costs in bin collection. People living in Aberdeen where the proposed waste to energy incinerator will be built might not have to have this development imposed upon them.
In the bigger picture humans and animals from around the region.
What kind of community support would you like?
Enthusiastic awareness and energetic support, Hands-on once a month, Money
What is the full project cost?
£700 for the feasibility phase
How much would you like the NFA community to contribute?
Full – £700
Proposed Start Date Proposed Completion Date
1/07/2016 12/12/2016
Your Support Network
I am working with tsiMoray Environmental Forum, Moray Council Department of Environmental Services within each of these organisations there is sufficient accountability and support to keep the project going. Additionally once there is community engagement that will naturally create a support network. I am also waiting to here from Ekopia’s board of trustees if this is a project they can support.
If you didn’t get NFA community support will you do the project / initiative anyway?
I would have to find funding support elsewhere and it’s much harder to get for the feasibility and design phase of a project.
Are you happy to be accountable to the NFA community?
Yes
End of Proposals
2015 Last year’s Focus & Funding Awards
Focus Category
£300 Funding Category
£500 Funding Category
