The Community Convergence

WATCH THIS SPACE FOR NEW ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR OFF-GRID FESTIVAL 2018 COMING SOON!

See below for a taster of our 2017 programme

The Community Convergence is an open space for capacity building, community-led activism and boundless co-creativity.

Sessions will run from 9 am – 6 pm each day.

We’re building an exciting programme of talks and discussion sessions, focusing on the Power of Community and Network-Building with a range of experienced and skilled contributors available to facilitate.

The Community Convergence will be hosted in the wetheuncivilised space (see below)

Confirmed contributors to the 2017 programme include:

Bill Knight – Regenerative Settlement – An overview Friday 11th 3:30- 4: 30 pm
Joanna Dornan – The Agroecological Land Trust – Co-house for low-impact land-based communities Saturday 12th 3:30- 4:30 pm
Charlotte Oliver (Landmatters) – Planning Permission for Low Impact Development Saturday 12th 3:30- 4:30 pm
Isabel Carlisle (Bioregional Learning Centre) – Community Charters Saturday 12th 2- 3 pm
Felipe Viveros (GNH Centre of Bhutan) – Whole Systems Transformation: Change from the Inside Out Sunday 13th 2- 3 pm
Michael Thomas (Transition Network), Felipe Viveros (GNH Centre) & Dan Hurring (Permaculture Association), Hal Gilmore (REconomy) – The Power of Networks Saturday 12th 5- 6 pm
Doug King-Smith: The Hillyfield project Friday 11th 2 – 3 pm
Sara Melendro: Setting up a Workers Co-operative Friday 11th 5.00 – 6.00pm
Myc Riggulsford: Charter of the Forest Sunday 13th 5-6pm
Eve Carnell: Buzz Tour Film Screening and Q & A Saturday 12th 8 pm onwards

wetheuncivilised – Sun-powered Ecological Cinema and Community Hub – Join us as we explore a culture of connection and belonging and cultivate the possibility of positive social and environmental change – this year, we are honoured to be hosting the Off Grid Community Convergence Programme. Details to come, but expect some of the following, and more!

Community Convergence – An open space for capacity building, community-led activism and boundless co-creativity. Daily 1-6pm
Talking Circles – Experience and learn about the power of sitting in Circle. Drawing on indigenous wisdom from around the world, talking Circles are a way of connecting, decision making and coming together to find solutions Daily 9-10 am
Ecological Cinema – Films selected to inspire, inform, empower and engage, including screening and Q&A with filmmakers of Award-Winning wetheuncivilised, A Life Story “A stunning and sensitive journey into ecology, humanity and spirituality.” Daily 8 pm onwards
Cultural Emergence – how to create a healthy culture. Presented by We The Uncivilized Daily 10:30 -11:30 am
Shorts & Talks- Inspiring Ecological and Social Justice Shorts Daily 12- 1 pm

Speaker Biographies

Restorative Settlements

With Bill Knight

Friday 11th 3:30- 4: 30 pm

Overview – Regenerative Settlement – imagine if human development made things better not worse. If people living on land increased biodiversity, biocapacity, clean water, clean air, and enhanced landscape. If that land met all their energy needs, most of their food needs, hosted meaningful work and was the basis for building community. People and land in closer connection, better for both. A new movement to support all of this is being born. Come and hear more about it.

Bill’s sustainability consultancy, 4th World Ecological Design, helps its clients reduce their ecological footprint. The permaculture ethics; Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share have been influential on his thinking. Bill works closely with planners Geo Ltd to provide support and training for both applicants and planning authorities considering One Planet Developments. One Planet Developments recognise that the impacts of development are as much to do with the behaviour of the occupants/users as they are to do with the design of the structure.

www.geo-ltd.com

The Hillyfield: Woodland Management & Restoration on Dartmoor

With Doug King Smith of The Hillyfield

Friday 11th 2- 3 pm

Doug and his partner Claire manage 45 acres of ancient woodland and organic pasture in Dartmoor. In the usual absurd way that planning departments function, as with Steward Wood they are now being put under pressure from planners, aiming to force them to take down their buildings of work despite their practicing forestry on the land.
This session will be a presentation about the process of obtaining the land and managing it sustainably, an update on the planning situation and an opportunity for discussion of this and other aspects of woodland management.

http://www.thehillyfield.co.uk/

The Charter of the Forest

With Myc Riggulsford

Saturday 12th 3:30- 4: 30 pm

Thanks to geology your electricity bill may be illegal, and according to ancient laws, Britons may already have a right to the Universal Basic Income currently being talked about here and across Europe. Once upon a time, long, long ago, we could all feed and water ourselves, and our families and livestock, house them, keep them warm, and get some power, simply from the land we live on. Amongst our most important ancient rights was the free use of geoscience to collect and mould clay, the plastic of its time, a Commons Right overlooked by historians who focus on grazing animals or collecting firewood instead.

www.smallpower.co.uk

Land-based communities – Land Trust model, discussion and networking

With Joanna Dornan, Land and Food Activist

Saturday 12th 3:30- 4:30 pm

Setting up Land-based communities – Land Trust model, discussion and networking. This session will give a brief introduction to Land Trust legal structures that are being used in the UK for land-based co-housing/cooperatives and the differences between them. Followed by a discussion and networking with others who are interested in setting up or are already involved in a live-in land-based project.

Joanna Dornan – With an interest in permaculture, forest gardening and landrights, Joanna set up and ran a community forest garden on open access council land in Leeds: bedfordfields.co.uk Also for the past 2 years she’s been following the GAPS diet, an acestral/primal diet approach to healing the gut, which has helped heal long-standing health issues. She’s recently moved to Wales with a view to being part of or setting up a landbased community focusing on regenerative farming, soil carbon sequestration, ancestral/primal diet and herbal medicine for healing humans and the land.

Happiness Economics

Sunday 13th 2- 3 pm

The Power of Networks

Saturday 12th 5- 6 pm

Felipe Viveros

Felipe is a strategist and consultant specialising in campaigning, program design and fundraising. He has worked with governments and organisations globally, including the Tairona Trust and TheRules. More recently he has become the European representative of the GNH Centre Bhutan a renown NGO that has pioneered the prototyping and implementation of a new development paradigm. Throughout his career Felipe has championed environmental campaigning and indigenous peoples rights and founded the Black Line Initiative, a groundbreaking environmental indigenous consultancy with the Kogi people of Colombia. He is an independent action researcher with a MSc in Holistic Science from Schumacher College, Totnes.

https://therules.org

Setting up a Workers Cooperative

With Sara Melendro of Hilltown Organics

Sara Melendro; founding member and director of Harvest Workers’ Co-op

Sara has participated in various types of co-ops in the past and has recently been involved in setting-up a workers’ co-operative in Devon. The co-op is made up by a group of 7 producers and educators and runs a farm shop and an educational hub on all things related to food and farming.

Sara will be speaking about her experience of setting up Harvest Workers Co-op and will go through the main issues to consider for anyone thinking on doing something similar, highlighting the key topics and main steps to follow. She will go through the typical timeline of the process and provide some pointers as to where to get further help and advice.

Community Charters

With Isabel Carlisle

Saturday 12th 2- 3 pm

Isabel Carlisle leads the team that is bringing the Bioregional Learning Centre into being in South Devon. She is also Education Coordinator for Transition Network and is co-founder of the Community Chartering Network She lives in Totnes, Devon.

Following a long career in the art world (in art publishing; as an art critic for The Times; and exhibitions curator at the Royal Academy of Arts in London) Isabel set up and directed the Festival of Muslim Cultures that took place across Britain throughout 2006. Over 120 events in almost every conceivable art form brought audiences into contact with the Muslim world in order to build bridges of understanding between cultures. After that Isabel became a Creative Consultant to the University of the Arts in London and developed education strategies for sustainability with schools in the east end of London. She moved to Totnes in 2010 and created two blueprint education programmes for Transition Network: Schools in Transition and One Year in Transition (1YT). 1YT is a sustainable livelihood-creation programme for over 20s that is now being replicated abroad. Isabel is also a member of the European Commons Assembly.

Planning Permission for Low Impact Development

With Charlotte Oliver (Landmatters Community)

Sunday 13th 3:30- 4:30 pm

Most people have little experience of the planning system until they need to use it. This session will cover an introduction to why there is a system, how to make the most of it, and some pitfalls to avoid, in the context of low impact development. It will be mostly in Q&A format with everyone’s questions and answers welcome. So please bring your experiences, good and not so great, to share with others embarking on the L.I.D. path.

Charlotte lives at Landmatters permaculture community near Totnes, Devon. She was involved in their journey from enforcement notices to permanent planning permission, and draws on this experience and that of similar low impact developments.

www.landmatters.org.uk

The Power of Networks

With Michael Thomas (Transition Network)

Saturday 12th 5- 6 pm

Mike Thomas has worked for Transition Network for the past 4 years developing support structures and Regional Networks in the UK. He has a distinct interest in developing infrastructure to support movements to grow and develop in order to meet the challenges we face as a species. As well as looking at practical ways of building movements, he is also interested in the wider questions of how we can structure society in a different way to maximise human potential as well as moving towards a sustainable way of living.

To investigate this he has read widely around philosophy, psychology, politics and systems thinking. At this workshop Mike will explain the work he has been doing in the UK with Transition Groups as well as touching on the bigger issues of how we can work together to make the shift that is needed to develop a better world. Mike also runs the website http://www.permanentculturenow.com which has lots of talks and information around these topics.

Buzz Tour: Film + Q&A

With Eve Carnell

Saturday 12th 8 pm onwards

During The Buzz Tour Eve walked 1400 miles across England, dressed as a bee and living off donations, interviewing people about the tactics they use to protect the environment. From NGO workers and polititcians to anarchists and permaculturalists, this one hour documentary introduces us to some of those community heroes working around the country to change the culture not the climate. buzztour.org

After working for the Environment Agency Eve left mainstream work to learn about other ways of protecting the environment. Spending a year in Canada she lived with indigenous first nations campaigning against oil pipelines. She then campaigned on climate camps with Reclaim the Power and started her own organic toiletries business. After the Buzz Tour she wrote a book about the journey and toured it by bike around the country. She is currently the production coordinator on an organic hemp farm.