Permaculture course May 2007

Chickenshack housing co-op had its January quarterly meeting this week and have formally agreed that we are going ahead with our full permaculture design course again this year. So its all hands on deck as it were, as we want to create better facilites than last year and improve on the practical sessions as well. Last year's event was very successful, with a wonderful group of students, check the blog for May last year to see some of the photos if you are interested. However, the weather was really tough last year, windy and wet for the first 8 or 9 days, unseasonally so for May, hence this year we are aiming to leave a lot less to chance.

We are planning to have at least one and maybe two 16 foot Yurts (Mongolian Ger) - which is a round tent-like structure with insulated felt lined walls, as well as taking up on a generous offer from friends from the Llanfylln festival who are offering to help build the site facilites for us.

Students will also be able to use facilities in the house as well, but we are really pulling the stops out in terms of creating more comfort and refuge, if the weather is as bad again.

After the rigours of 9 days of wind and rain last year, it ended up in a heatwave and drought that went on for the next couple of months, so there is no knowing what we have to prepare for.

Teachers include chickenshack's very own steve Jones, who has been building forest gardens in schools over the last few months and Bristol permaculture's ever busy Sarah Pugh. Who, we are expecting on a field visit this weekend, with the current course she is teaching there. Field trips we are planning include visiting a couple of permaculutre plots locally, as well as the centre for Alternative Technology and Dulas ltd - a leading innovator in the field of renwable energy and more. Practical session with Steve Pickup from the www.thewillowbank.com who is a leading landscape artist, working with living willow structures, plus lots more!

Anyone interested please get in touch, we are looking forward to hearing from you