An invitation from the Education Team at Braziers Park Community enticed Robin to the experimental group work and social research community in South Oxfordshire for four days. This completed her stay in UK.
Members were interested to participate in a ‘Dynamic Decision Making’ one day workshop and Robin also encouraged some community cross pollination by giving a presentation about ‘Crystal Waters Permaculture Village’ on her last evening there.
The community is housed in a small Gothic style castle, quite an extraordinary building that was originally a farm house built in 1688 and extended with the Gothic turret type wings in 1799.
The community has a large Permaculture garden and hosts many volunteers, workshops, seminars and four festivals a year including WOOD which Robin was luck enough to participate in on her first day there.
Each day the community has a half hour morning circle where people share anything they feel to in a round then tasks and support jobs for the day are allocated. One evening a week they have a ‘Sensory Meeting’ where many things are discussed but no decisions are made and on another evening that have a ‘Executive Meeting’ where decisions are made. There are 12 places for permanent residents, lots of opportunity for one to three months volunteering and also for being part of the wider support non-residential community that looks after the building, estate and philosophy.