Good Things Are Happening (Again)

I've neglected this blog somewhat this month.  In its place I've spent some time building my YouTube channel and also actually doing things. 2019 is the year of actually doing things.  The group I joined last year is beginning to take shape and evolve away from just a Facebook group of people clicking "like" on things and occasionally about 2% of us actually meeting in person, into a mission to build a "tiny house eco village".  To this end, we have now renamed ourselves as Manchester Tiny House Eco Village.  Here's the link to the Facebook group page.

There are, it has been pointed out by one of our new members, the singularly focussed and organised Diane, three questions - "why?" "what?" and "how?"  Plenty of people want to find better, happier, more communal, weirder, and more affordable ways to live, but how do we actually go about doing that?  Our first spring "founding session" will therefore ask "why?"  This will take place in Manchester city centre on Sunday 24th March (please see the group page for more details).

It seems that this questions answers itself, at least if you're already of that way of thinking: because life as it is now for most of us is dull, alienating, wasteful, un-affordable, unsustainable and seriously deficient in happiness and joy.  There are better ways of living, and these ways are fast becoming not only desirable but essential.  That's my answer anyway.  Perhaps you have your own.

Some of our group, inside a "tiny" house.

Our second and third founding sessions, in April and May, will ask "what?" and "how?" respectively.  What form could our "eco village" take?  There are many possibilities.  Tiny houses are in vogue right now, and they are an attractive option, but they aren't the only one.  And indeed, some tiny houses are tinier than others.  Last year our group visited the wudl show home in Rusholme, which comfortably accommodated 11 of us for our group soirée, including its incomparable builder and inhabitant, Ric, who has gone on to build another organisation looking to support community groups to develop their projects.  Another member of our group, Chrissy, has enthused abut buying an old care home or a church, with some land, and building a community out of that.  Personally I'll be happy whatever we do, as long as there's lots of space to grow plants.  Good things, as I said, are happening.

And good things continue to happen.  On Saturday I attended the first day of a "Permaculture Design Course", run by the Northern School of Permaculture  It's something I've wanted to learn more about for some time, but now in the year of actually doing things, I'm actually doing it.  "Permaculture" just means "permanent culture", as opposed to agriculture, which just so happens to be the foundation, rightly or wrongly, of civilization.  Permaculture explores alternatives: incorporating gardening, design, architecture, ecology and well, everything else into a nebulous but coherent way of thinking about the world.  The course is one Saturday a month for the rest of the year.  I'm itching to learn more. 

Related posts

The Past, Present and Future of Tiny Houses
Good Things are Happening
Oh No, Not Utopia Again


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