Since this journey has ended up being a major milestone in the development of United Diversity I though I had better re-post this write up I did for the Brake The Cycle blog here too. Enjoy! (note: click on images to enlarge) Last month I cycled about 1200 miles, from the south-easternmost tip of mainland England (Land's End) up to the north-westernmost tip of mainland Scotland (John O'Groats). I thus completed one half of the Brake the Cycle End to End challenge! :) It was the UK's coldest … [Read more...]
COMING HOME: E.F. Schumacher and the Reinvention of the Local Economy
This is one of the best documentaries about Community Supported Agriculture, Community Land Trusts and Community Currencies. COMING HOME: E.F. Schumacher and the Reinvention of the Local Economy, is a new 37 minute film that tells the story of a series of revolutionary innovations by the community of Great Barrington, MA to address, at the local level, some of the economic challenges of our nation’s current hard times. In 1973, British economist E.F. Schumacher wrote “Small is Beautiful – … [Read more...]
Springhill Cohousing
Last Saturday Gloria and I joined members of the North London Sustainable Housing Partnership to visit the lovely Springhill Cohousing community in Stroud. The video above is a quick tour of the site (unfortunately my battery ran out before I got to show you around inside the common house, and I hadn't put the camera in high resolution mode). Below are the photos I took during our tour, where together with lots of outdoor picture you can take a sneak peak inside some of the houses (some of which … [Read more...]
Strawbale prefab building timelapse – Strohballen Vorfertigung Zeitraffer
Strawbale prefab building timelapse - Strohballen Vorfertigung Zeitraffer This clip is part of film material for a new film about strawbale building: "Houses of straw - Part 2". Become a sponsor for this project! More information about this film: www.ecofilm.de This timelapse clip shows the build-up of a prefab-strawbale building in Germany, in the ecovillage Siebenlinden. Architect: Dirk Scharmer. The wall elements were built in a hall nearby, transported to the spot and built up … [Read more...]
Soil Pulverizer Annihilates Soil Handling Limits
We are glad to report that the LifeTrac-mounted, open source soil pulverizer has annihilated soil-handling limits from our compressed earth brick (CEB) pressing ability. Initial testing achieved 5 ton per hour soil throughput, while The Liberator CEB press requires about 1.5 tons of soil per hour. We have shown the pulverizer rotor development in a previous post. See the build and testing of the machine after the addition of the bucket and lift cylinder: Soil Pulverizer Prototype 1 Complete … [Read more...]
Convergence 13: Transition Strategies
This looks set to be an amazing event... Cultivate Update cultivate your self | community | world Friday 22nd Feb 2008 Convergence 13: Transition Strategies Post Carbon Cities, Transition Towns and Eco-Villages 3rd to the 7th of April 2008 | Festival Pass: €120 until March 10th (€150 thereafter) Bookings 01 674 5773 or Online Attention climate activists, community workers, environmentalists, academics, change agents and cultural creatives, if you are at the leading edge of … [Read more...]
We Have Land!
Hello all, INTRO As some of you know already, I'm out in Spain acquiring land for the Commons! :) I came out here with 4 main tasks: to see and help my Dad to get my Dad's land transferred into my name so we can invest it in the Commons! to send out this long overdue Commons Creation update! and to come up with a clear strategy for United Diversity. Most of these overlap in some way. Since Commons Creation is a project co-ordinated by United Diversity I couldn't really do 3 without … [Read more...]
The Permaculture Concept
Check out this video will Bill Mollison, co-founder of the Permaculture concept, explaining The Permaculture Concept... On google video As a youtube playlist … [Read more...]
Inspiring Land, Money and Media Projects
In my last post about Transition Towns I mentioned that Gloria and I decided to try and write a post a day throughout May about inspiring people and projects. She's done a pretty good job so far, having covered Maya Angelou, Ruth Cox, Muhammad Yunus, Charles Drew, Jane Goodall, and Mark Johnson. I've not managed to keep the one post a day pace at all, so to make up for it I'm going to link to all my favourite land, money and media project on this page... (but its now gone 3am so I'm hitting … [Read more...]
Commons Creation meeting
The first Commons Creation meeting took place on Sunday 21st January: So far I've got some great groups signed up to the collective: Peace Not War: https://peace.fm The Synergy Project: https://thesynergyproject.org OneTaste: https://onetaste.co.uk Movimientos: https://www.movimientos.org.uk/ (site down!) they bring together all the Latin America solidarity groups and do regular monthly events with film and music. This is just the beginning, but together these groups already regularly … [Read more...]