Manda Brookman is not typical in any sense, and lives a very unique lifestyle. Ever since her university days she's lived her life of service to others. These days, she divides her time between her consultancy services, managing of 13 acres of "Happy Green Chaos" (with the help of resident pig WWOOFers),  and a myriad of community projects. Lately she's been heavily involved in bringing aid to the people stranded in the Calais refugee camp, which she's described as "hell under a tarp".

Luxe

Manda Brookman on building influence for positive change

Matt Morton took his PDC with Bill Mollison in 1996.

We start of with a casual mention of helping build a permaculture project over a derelict strip mine...

In 2000 he moved to London, and picked up a traditional gardening job to get the experience. He still earns his living implementing aesthetic gardens, but has been working on creating a permaculture demonstration site on an old farm, which for many years laid underutilized.

read more over at http://wp.me/p3YOi7-hN 

Servants

Matt Morton - an exclusive preview of an experimental farm in Oxford.

Bob Mehew from the Apricot Centre - learn effective strategies to ensure your project has the support of key groups and individuals. How to start a farm project from scratch. The Apricot Centre has been approached by the Biodynamic Land Trust to develop a permaculture/biodynamic farm in Devon. We were sitting beside a temporary workshop, where offgriders were learning greenwood woodworking, and archery. Also, if you think you can create an off grid system that will provide all utilities to the existing requirements, and fit within the budget of £25000, then contact Bob with your offer.

See the entire post about the special over at: http://wp.me/p3YOi7-hZ

OffGrid 2016 special - Bob Mehew Of The Apricot Centre

Workshop - Nick Read of English Hemp - one of a handful of UK based producers of medicinal hemp oil. Fully licensed, and organic. Nick is very knowledgeable and passionate about not only growing the healthiest crop he can, but also his connection with the natural world, and reducing his impact. He too left a lucrative career, and now lives off grid surrounded by nature.

To see the entire post go to: http://wp.me/p3YOi7-hZ

Workshop Presented By Nick Read From English Hemp

Phil and Lorena - Aquaroots - the company is a vehicle to create income for ALL the crazy, amazing, inspiring adventures that both of them take on! Both of them are PADI diving instructors, Palestine independence activists; honestly my mind was blown! The product - a flat pack aquaponics set has been designed to help teachers in early education to keep children engaged and interested.

To see the entire post go to: http://wp.me/p3YOi7-hZ

OffGrid 2016 special - Phil And Lorena From Aquaroots

Anne and Kay created and nurture the Holt Wood - a 3.5 acre piece of woodland, which they transformed from a commercial conifer timber planting to a diverse forest garden. The focus of their work is the medicinal nature of everything in their project. Although you will find edible species there, the idea was to, literally take growing medicinal plants in the UK to the next level. Most gardens only keeps medicinal herbs, whilst they have built a multi-story forest assembly. Read more at http://wp.me/p3YOi7-lI

For the soil testing offer, go to: http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/know-the-true-health-of-your-soil

Anne Stobart - medicinal forest gardens - a new quality in permaculture

Sion Whellens is a member, director, and an employee (all in one person), together with other members, directors, and employees of Calverts worker coop in London. He’s here to tell us practical steps for setting up cooperatives. What are the benefits and potential risks, and what cooperative structures can do for removing some of the limitations of the capitalist economy, without the need for a revolution.  Read more at http://wp.me/p3YOi7-mx
Put your pebble here: http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/know-the-true-health-of-your-soil

Sion Whellens - Benefits Of Setting Up As A Workers Cooperative

Chris is one of the pioneers of permaculture in the UK, but has spent a large part of his career in Nepal, helping develop resources that create prosperity in local, subsistence communities.

Read more at http://wp.me/p3YOi7-p1

Chris Evans - Permaculture from Nepal to the UK

John is not a permaculture celebrity in the UK, but it's about to change, I think. His project, and the way he approached it gives us an opportunity to learn how to collaborate with the government in order to create the kind of systems that we want. We can also learn how the government can make use of the solutions to problems that we face in a permaculture fashion. We can offer to solve problems, get paid to do it, and create situations that produce other yields.
Read more http://wp.me/p3YOi7-rM

John Macdonald - How To Get Funding For Restoring Land From The Environmental Agency

Chris wants to grow food, but ten years ago, when he and a couple of friends first set out in that direction, they saw that they would struggle to sell their food in the Greater Manchester area where they reside. Instead of simply going further to sell, or moving, they chose to completely redesign the supply chain. Fast forward to now, the Manchester Veg Growers is a coop created by the Kindling Trust that in 2016 has delivered over £150000 worth of food grown within the Greater Manchester area to clients in Manchester. Read more at http://wp.me/p3YOi7-so

Chris Walsh - The Kindling Trust - An Incubator Of Regenerative Ventures

Steph is well known for her work with the no-dig gardening method together with her partner - Charles Dowding (listen to our quick chat here). She came to the South West Convergence to promote their new book "No dig organic home & garden" and to give two presentations - one on the no dig method, and the other was this, called "Garden Potions". I chose to record this instead the no-dig presentation, as it's not as well known part of what she does as the gardening itself Read more at http://wp.me/p3YOi7-sy

Steph Hafferty - Garden Potions

Ian Wilkinson is one of the 15 people working at Cotswold Seeds - a company that supplies a variety of seeds in bulk, that you can use on any size up to broad scale farming applications. This chat is a chance to meet yet another bridge between permaculture and organic and conventional farming, and see just how many areas we could work together on, and how many people we can meet doing amazing, restorative work. Read more at http://wp.me/p3YOi7-sT

Ian Wilkinson From Cotswold Seeds And His Multi - Produce Farm

Maddy Harland is the chief editor of Permanent Publications and the Permaculture Magazine. At the convergence she gave a talk on permaculture enterprise. She was asked to give this talk as over the years she orchestrated an impressive array of small, interwoven ventures, focused around the Sustainability Centre, located in a 100 acre, former naval base in Hampshire. Read more at http://wp.me/p3YOi7-tc

Maddy Harland SW Convergence Enterprise Workshop

We met with Gary Mitchell at the 2017 Oxford Real Farming Conference, where he was promoting the Growing Together project, but mainly works at the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens, which represents and supports such outfits across the UK. Their land "dating" service could be ideal for aspiring permaculture designers looking to create community oriented, land based projects in their own area. This service unfortunately is limited now to Wales and Scotland, but even if you're in England and Northern Ireland, they would welcome your call

Gary Mitchell - Federation Of City Farms And Community Gardens

"My house is my castle" - it's a saying many of us will know and live by, but not necessarily admit. There's a lot of fear involved in having people we've never met in our house and rightly so. There are some people who don't have good intentions, and how are we supposed to know, right? Ben and Sophie Margolis chose to live in a totally opposite way, and over the past few years have welcomed thousands of strangers from around the world into their home, and lives to get them out of oppression, and give them hope and support they need to be able to flourish and contribute as they choose. The Grange is a permaculture project, a small holding, and a home, to a family, and to refugees who often come with memories of very traumatic experiences. Ben tells the story of how they help these people regain their confidence and self worth. Read more at http://wp.me/p3YOi7-tT

Ben Margolis - How To Run A Permaculture Refugee Centre

Graeme Willis works for Campaign to Protect Rural England. We met at the 2017 Oxford Real Farming Conference where he was part of a panel presenting a few interesting farming examples that were using methods we use in our designs. We discuss these in the first half of the chat, and in the latter we get to learn about CPRE's lobbying work to persuade the government to introduce laws that facilitate brownfield site redevelopment for homes, and increase diversity of developers, as the current market is dominated by a few large companies. read more at http://wp.me/p3YOi7-u2

Graeme Willis - CPRE And Their High Level Work To Help Regenerate Towns And Cities

This is a great episode. We met with Neil at the Oxford Real Farming Conference 2017 (another in the series). He works for Garden Organic - a tiny non profit focusing on promoting organic growing (go figure!), and his task is managing a library of seeds that do not appear on the National Seed List. Only seeds that go through vetting, and testing (which costs a bit of money) can go onto that list, and are allowed to be sold legally. What the Heritage Seed Library does, it provides a way to distribute those seeds without the need for adding them to the List. Listen and read more on how they achieve that. You will find some interesting gems here. read more at http://wp.me/p3YOi7-uf

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