Tag: Leadership

Community Building, Green Collar Economy, Infrastructure, Local Economy, Pathways to Thriving, Permaculture, Synergetic Genius, Systems Thinking, Turning Point Gratitude Project, Unique Genius

July 15 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Stormwater Analysis of Crowell Park

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Session 8 of the Turning Point Gratitude Project permaculture course will be a field trip to Crowell Lot in Brattleboro. This session will be free and open to the public.

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This heavily wooded park is very popular with neighbors. It borders on the Green Street School and has a playground. It has also been know to be camp for squatters. It was initially chosen as the site for the town skate board park, which will now be built in Memorial Park.

This park is located at the corner of Western Avenue and Union Street. It is owned by the school district, and slops towards the Whetstone Brook and Connecticut River. The “Whetstone Brook flows west to east from the hills of Marlboro across Brattleboro before emptying into the Connecticut River in downtown Brattleboro (Whetstone). The brook’s headwaters originate at over 1,500 feet above sea level at Hidden Lake. The brook cascades down from steep hills and follows Vermont Rte. 9 to the Connecticut River flatlands. The brook empties into the Connecticut River at 250 feet above sea level, dropping over 1,250 feet in just seven miles of stream length (Whetstone). Approximately 69% of the watershed resides in Brattleboro with 29% of the land in Marlboro and 2% of the land within Dummerston (Whetstone, 2008). The watershed contains nearly 20 miles of streams and a mix of rural, residential and urban land.” (Watershed description taken from a Vermont Environmental Conservation publication.)

During this session participants will analyze water flow, including how the site is being affected or affects its neighboring properties. The participants have learned a lot about water flow, how water and land interact, and how to retain this valuable resource on site for use in creating an edible landscape aligned with the existing ecosystem. They’ve learned the value of stacking functions, using and enhancing existing patterns, how forest layers interact, and how to use the permaculture principles and ethics to guide their designs.

Join us for what will be an interesting and informative session. This will be the final session before the students focus on the Turning Point edible forest garden design. If you have questions about the Turning Point Gratitude Project, the stormwater analysis of Crowell Lot, or want to talk about using ecological design to manage stormwater on your site, please contact me!

Community Building, Green Collar Economy, Infrastructure, Local Economy, Pathways to Thriving, Permaculture, Synergetic Genius, Systems Thinking, Turning Point Gratitude Project, Unique Genius

TPGP Makes the Airwaves with Green Mountain Mornings

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Many thanks to Chris Lenois of WKVT Radio’s Green Mountain Mornings. Chris invited us in to speak about the Turning Point Gratitude Project. Chris asked many really insightful questions about the benefits to the Turning Point of Windham County community. Take a listen!

TPGPPC

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Collective Genius, Community Building, Infrastructure, Local Economy, Pathways to Thriving, Permaculture, Synergetic Genius, Systems Thinking, Turning Point Gratitude Project, Unique Genius

Turning Point Gratitude Project Recieves 2015 Seed Grant from NEGEF!

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We are deeply grateful to the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund for awarding the Turning Point Gratitude Project one of their 2015 Seed Grants. Wrote Ally Philip, Program Coordinator, during a recent correspondence, “We are happy to support such an innovative project that touches upon several of NEGEF’s issue areas.” We are quite happy too, Ally! The funds will go to defray some of the costs incurred in setting up the program, purchasing materials for the classes and implementation of the design.

Thank you so much NEGEF! Want to donate to our project? Contact Turning Point of Windham County Executive Director Susan Walker at TPWC.1 (at) hotmail.com. Your gift is tax-deductible! We will also need materials and manpower to implement the design once it’s complete. You’ll be in great company!

Here is the course outline: TPGPCourseOutlineRev. The registration fee for the full PDC is $500, (which is one third to one quarter of the usual cost for certification). If you would like to enroll in the Permaculture Design Certification course please use this form: TPGPCourseReg.

To enroll in individual courses, download this registration form: TPGPINDCourseReg. Those who have EBT cards may enroll in individual courses at no cost! If you have questions, please contact Cimbria CimbriaGratitudeProject (at) gmail.com. We look forward to having you play with us in the garden!

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Community Building, Green Collar Economy, Infrastructure, Local Economy, Pathways to Thriving, Permaculture, Synergetic Genius, Systems Thinking, Turning Point Gratitude Project, Unique Genius

Turning Point Gratitude Project Course Outline & Registration Forms

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We are less than a week away from the first session of the Turning Point Gratitude Project Ecological Design Course. The first session begins at 8 a.m. on Tuesday June 2nd and runs until 1 p.m. Here is what will be covered next Tuesday:

Session 1 ~ Introduction to Permanent Agriculture and Ecological Design Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Cost: 5 BTT Hours or $35 (Free with EBT Card)

Certification Course Registration Form: TPGPCourseReg
Individual Course Registration Form: TPGPCourseBTTEBTReg
To view the Course Schedule: TPGPCourseOutline

In this session you will learn the origins of Permaculture and how it is meant to provide a means to ecological justice for all beings. The earth and other living beings demonste what works best, what they need to thrive, and how to live in an integrated landscape. Permaculture is a way of life, not a different way of gardening. What are your hopes for the session?

Knowledge covered
Principles: Observe & Interact, Catch & Store Energy, Obtain a Yield, Self-Regulate/Accept Feedback,  Use & Value Renewables, Produce No Waste, Design from Patterns to Detail, Integrate, Slow, Small Solutions, Use & Value Diversity, Value the Marginal

Ethics: Care for the Earth – Environmental goal, Care for People – Social goals, Fair Share – Embrace justice for all beings

Learning Objectives
The origins and goals of the Turning Point Gratitude Project will be explained. You will meet the Executive Director, Susan Walker of Turning Point of Windham County, and some of the Board Members and Volunteers who will be working with us throughout the project.

How can we slow the damage being done to our planet, and even begin to restore ecosystem services? How much you learn and what your takeaway from the class will be up to you. The best question is the one that is asked. We will begin to develop relationship, and plot our session.

Skills covered:

  • We will begin building a cooperative and non-threatening environment in which to learn.
  • An understanding of the Principles and Ethics, and why they are the bedrock of our practice
  • Principles of Ecology: An understanding of how climate change is affecting us in our daily lives, in our home environment (land practices contributing to Stormwater runoff).
  • We will review the cycles of Earth and the food chain. What are limiting factors?
  • We will begin to understand how time, diversity and stability are related.
Community Building, Edible Brattleboro, Green Collar Economy, Infrastructure, Local Economy, Pathways to Thriving, Permaculture, Systems Thinking

The Launch of Edible Brattleboro

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A lively group of Brattleboro residents met today at the Brattleboro Co-op cafe to launch a new project. Each of us came to the meeting with varied backgrounds and the unifying goal of encouraging land owners to consider moving away from traditional landscaping and towards using permaculture to design edible front yards. There are already a large number of homeowners in the town proper who grow more kale and other veggies than box hedges and day lilies. We hope to recruit these forward thinkers to assist with implementing similar projects in community spaces.

Upon arriving in Brattleboro I contacted some human service organizations to offer assistance in creating edible forest gardens on their property, as a service project. The ideal organization will see the value in designing their site as a space that will serve many functions: food for the clients and staff, outside meeting areas, wildlife habitat, and badly needed stormwater management that will slow the flow of water to the Whetstone and Connecticut Rivers. This week I will send out invitations to the directors of some of these organizations to explain the benefits of partnering with Edible Brattleboro. Imagine Morningside Shelter surrounded by blueberry bushes! Picture Brattleboro Housing Authority properties with community gardens which could provide healthy food for the families in residence. Permaculture can make this happen in a way that is low maintenance, manages stormwater and educates kids about food systems. Edible Brattleboro can make this happen in a manner that further binds our community together. Do you know a human service organization in Brattleboro that would benefit from partnering with us?

Our first project will allow our team to become acquainted, and to more fully understand the individual gifts we bring to the group. It will provide an an opportunity to share my knowledge of permaculture with people eager to learn about its framework and principles. Our new group is eager to get started. Would you like to play with us? We will be presenting information on Edible Brattleboro at the Climate Change Cafe meeting hosted by Post Oil Solutions Tuesday January 27th at 6 pm in the meeting room at Brooks Memorial Library. Our next team meeting is scheduled for Sunday February 1st, before the CT Rivershed Permaculture Group meeting. (Don’t worry, we’ll be done before the Super Bowl starts!) Feel free to contact me to learn more about Edible Brattleboro, everyone is welcome to participate as we grow edibles everywhere!

Community Building, Energy, Green Collar Economy, Infrastructure, Local Economy, Systems Thinking

How do we build sustainable infrastructure?

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Until now, there have been no common standards by which sustainable infrastructure projects could be measured. With the Envision™ Rating Tool, launched in 2012 through a collaboration between the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure, project design teams now have a way to evaluate infrastructure designs, and their suitability for a particular community.

Envision™ provides these teams with a framework for evaluating and rating the benefits and impacts of all types of infrastructure projects on the stakeholders, the natural resources and the local economy. As communities build projects to support the needs of their stakeholders, more and more are considering how to best use resources over the life cycle of a project.

If we consider the recent senior housing project at the Carroll County campus, we could ask how the building will be used when the senior population has declined. Can the building be dismantled and the resources used elsewhere? Can it easily be transformed into additional correctional space, or perhaps as dormitories for criminal justice students? The answers to these questions will help us rate whether this infrastructure project was planned to be truly sustainable.

Envision™ has sixty sustainability criteria, called credits, divided into five sections: Quality of Life, Leadership, Resource Allocation, Natural World, and Climate and Risk.

As the only credentialed Envision Sustainability Professional (ENV SP) in New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont, I can lead your infrastructure project teams through the process of developing sustainable projects by assessing, evaluating and grading sustainability indicators over the course of the project’s life cycle. What arises is a project design which truly includes input from all stakeholders that will best serve your community.

Envision™ can be used by infrastructure owners, design teams, community groups, environmental organizations, constructors, regulators, and policy makers to:
• Meet sustainability goals as defined by the stakeholders.
• Be publicly recognized for high levels of achievement in sustainability.
• Help communities and project teams to collaborate and discuss, “Are we doing the right project?” and, “Are we doing the project right?”
• Make decisions about the investment of scarce resources.
• Include community priorities in civil infrastructure projects.

The Envision™ tools help the project design team:
• Evaluate environmental resource origins and benefits as an integral part of the project
• Assess costs and benefits over the project lifecycle, considering what happens to the resources when the project function is no longer relevant or appropriate.
• Use outcome-based objectives based on these new considerations.
• Reach higher levels of sustainability achievement than is currently acceptable.

Together we can design your infrastructure project to be truly sustainable. I can guide you as we develop a stakeholder engagement model that ensures the project will serve the community. Please get in touch to discuss your project.