Tackling Social Inequality: Charity and Co-operation?

“We cannot force up the wages of labour, or force down the prices of provisions, without disorganising society” – Sir Charles Trevelyan, 1846
Irish potato famine

It’s a sad fact that this quote, from the Treasury official responsible for the Government response to starvation during the potato famine in both Ireland and Scotland, seems relevant again today.

Our friends at Triodos Bank have launched a new current account and you can register today! You will get an eco-friendly contactless debit card and support a bank that is lending to organisations and businesses that deliver positive change for people and planet. Triodos share our vision for a brighter future and have supported the permaculture movement for many years.

Also, by choosing to bank with Triodos your money can support our work. Simply open a Triodos Current Account, and if you are a new Triodos customer, when your balance reaches £100 they’ll donate £40 to the Permaculture Association.

Find out more, including full terms and conditions here www.triodos.co.uk/permaculture/?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=redirect&u...

The image of the decaying town shopping centre, retail units empty, to-let signs plastered across whitewashed windows, is fast becoming the norm across the UK.

So in the midst of this retail wasteland, lies fertile space for radical redesign and regeneration. Perfect territory for permacultural thinking. One such project, York Place, in Newcastle-Under-Lyme has sparked a revolution in our perception of ‘the shopping centre’ and is proving that they can, and should be, so much more than just places to buy stuff.

Congratulations, we have officially broken the back of winter and from here on in light and temperature levels will slowly start to improve. Certainly the light levels bit is guaranteed...This month we offer you some excellent advice from permaculture friend and no-dig guru, Charles Dowding. Topics discussed include: what you can sow now, advice on potting compost, and his zero fossil fuel hot-bed propagator system.

We are excited to announce that the Permaculture Scotland gathering 2018 will be held in partnership with Transition St Andrews on Saturday 2 June in St Andrews, Fife.

Christmas is a time of year for inward reflection and outward generosity. Merging as it does with the ancient celebration of oncoming winter and marking the darkest days of the year, we have the opportunity to think back on the year that has been, to learn lessons, to appreciate our successes and joys and to put the year, metaphorically and physically to bed.

It is also the time in which we often reunite dispersed and busy family and friends and enjoy — usually — each others company over good food and good times. And of course, it’s a time for giving.

Open Badges is an initial project that the CoLab is serving and accommodating. We are developing a system where informal learning can be recognised by a range of bodies. They give out badges in return, which are helpful for communicating your knowledge, skills, and experience. How it works (is envisioned to work), you can find out in this blogpost.

The CoLab grows out of the fertile ground that is our shared passion, vision, and motivation. Permaculture practitioners would like to make make the systems we are part of more resilient and sustainable. For them to be able to focus on doing that there are some people that deal with all the other stuff. These people are trying to design an environment that nurtures the CoLabs collaborative initiatives. What that entails and who these people are is described in some detail in this blog post.

When working collaboratively we need to make decisions. The CoLab experiments with ways of doing that in a permaculture friendly way. We are trying out consent decision making along Sociocracy lines. Practically, we are using Loomio (an online tool) to make decisions. This post also outlines some central and important decisions we have already taken.