Setting the Sails

After reaching our goal of purchasing the land (we finally saw the new certificate of title today) I just ‘pulled the sails down and coasted, lying about on the deck’, while we tidied up the details. Its been a time to de-stress, and catch up on life (the garden is looking great) Also a time to contemplate the future. We are about to ‘reset the sails’. Our first new settlers arrive next week, first Kevin from America, and then Caroline from Whakatane and Kyle and Soni from Christchurch. Koanga’s marketing intern is arriving next Wednesday, Janna.. so Mel is freed up to do the Spring Internship,  the new Urban Garden apprentice arrives the week after with her son, and then 1 week after the PDC ends our Spring Internship begins for 10 weeks, With more to come over the next few months. exciting times!!

Right now I’m back involved teaching Koanga’s spring Permaculture Design Course, always an enjoyable experience. After that we will set the budget for the next year and start the development process including all the design that will be required to address building consents etc hmmmm. If we can get this done before Xmas, then the summer will be filled with building. Next week we will start our discussions with the Wairoa District Council to map a pathway for for our consents and building program. How about this, the Council have just offered us one of their Interns for the summer, a fourth year environmental engineer who is interested in Permaculture. Our first job will be to design a registered campsite for all our ‘campers’.

Shaked is currently erecting a round house where his tee pee was to make a more functional space whilst the bus gets finished so we can use the cottage for our village communications office space at least short term, and we are all finishing our winter tree planting.

It’s Tes’s birthday on Thursday, Michael is leaving to go back to Australia to his family and Freida will be 1 and Bob will be 64!   .. and Franzi’s birthday too!. Leon and his girlfriend Janina are back from Germany and it’s great to have them back again…

One of the interesting sidelines, in my rest, has been catching up with the global economic situation, through some of my favorite blogs (the likes of Automatic Earth, Peak Prosperity, The Archdruid Report and Resilience). It really does feel like we are about to face some significant changes (if not serious ones) even in little old NZ. It’s time to get prepared. One of the signs we’ve picked up on here is the seed sales at Koanga. We know from our past experience, that when there is some sort of perceived threat on the horizon (Y2K, the moratorium on GE, etc) that seeds sales increase dramatically. Well lately they’ve gone through the roof, many large orders from new people, a sense that there’s a ‘wiff of panic’ out there, time to get gardening for harder times. Only time will tell, but it certainly has cultivated a sense of urgency for us here.

With Kirsten no longer with us, she’s working on her new property in Kerikeri (and we’re helping with the design). You will have noted that the newsletters have been a lot less frequent, (now that its mainly my job) I suspect that wont change until our new crew arrive, but the ‘waka’ is still on track

One of my tasks to organise over the next month is to spend time within our team aligning our way forward. Getting clear exactly what our vision means, our strategic plans, and how we will approach implementing them. Fully reaching the potential that each individual brings to the team. While this will be mainly focussed on the process of the Village and the Koanga Institute, we are aware that it is just as relevant to many others out there, so we will keep you in touch with it as it progress’s. Lots more to come, so do keep in touch via our newsletter, and I’ll make sure to pass the writing onto some ‘fresh legs’

Regards

Bob