Coed Hills Introductory Permaculture course 9-10th August 2008. It was a
premature ending because we had to cancel the Full Design course due to lack of
numbers. But my intermittent workshops during the year saw us produce some
lovely woven hazel raised beds, a strawbale culture, some grafted fruit trees
for a proposed orchard, and some greenhouse culture. I ran the introductory as
best as I know, with 10 students and some impromptu contributions from the
residents. I used what was available including the woods, the stone circle and
Mixie’s lovely yurt. We ran lots of games this time as well, to get people’s
energy up and have some fun. For me the highlight was doing some sense
recognition exercises in the woods, and then using some in-situ musical
instruments to replicate the pulsing model of natural ecosystems. A visioning
and storytelling exercise in the circle was followed by a practical raised bed
and design workshop to include Charlie’s design from the course she attended at
Stewardswood, Devon.
I was so inspired this weekend that I almost demanded another course in the
following year, as a follow-up to my ongoing contributions. I am not sure if
this will happen since the community are facing legal action and planning issues
over some of the buildings. Anyhow, with two resident goats taking over the
strawbaler, chickens producing regular eggs, a large community with a host of
variable skills, it is difficult to see my participation coming to an end. One
major project I would like to cvontribute to is the designing of an orchard.
With some grafting courses during the year we could expand on the paermaculture
courses and set up apprenticeship schemes or ongoing tuiton. What works about
residnetial courses is that it takes a weight of the student's mind. That was
apparent on this course.