Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning Dynamic Courses, Books, Resources and Tours for Healthy Groups, People and Culture with Robin Clayfield

Hello Wonderful Community and Heart Centred Practitioners. Many of you know the core work Robin offers in the world. As well as Permaculture, her key focus and offering is the ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ courses, workshops, writings and educational resources. She feels very strongly that to support our world, our communities and positive change in education, the environment, social and political challenges etc we need people who are well skilled and trained in facilitation and group work. Groups form the basis of much positive action and community building. Education creates the backbone of new foundations and for learning a positive, peaceful and powerful way forward for our children, youth and also adults needing more tools, ideas and purpose. If our groups are well facilitated and work easily together, they are more effective at meeting their purpose and everything works out better for everyone, including all the people who benefit from …

Starhawk from USA Charlie McGee and Formidable Vegetable 3 Exciting Events Robin Clayfield, on behalf of Northey Street City Farm (and herself) has invited the much loved and respected author, activist, ritualist and Permaculture teacher Starhawk from the US to be our very special guest at the APC (Australasian Permaculture Convergence) and to also co-facilitate a 3 day and 3 night Social Permaculture in Action Immersion with Robin at Crystal Waters Permaculture Village. Dates for the APC – 20th to 23rd April 2020 Here’s the link to the website Dates for the Social Permaculture are 7th to 10th MayPoster and Link still to  come  🙂 Contact Robin by email Robin’s annual ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic  Learning’ Creative Teachers, Facilitators and Group Leadership Course at Crystal Waters Permaculture Village is fast approaching. Dates – 15th to 20th March 2020 Here’s a link to Robin’s website Immediately afterwards the absolutely fabulous, fantastic and …

A new online magazine, Eco Village Voice, presents special events and the first is the Eco Village Film Festival in Maleny, QLD. This film festival celebrates the rise of sustainable communities aka “ecovillages” who are using appropriate technology to combat the effects of climate change, and are focus more on care for the planet than consumerism and are promoting a healthy lifestyle for the future of humanity. Separate website – https://www.ecovillagefilmfestival.com Eco Village Voice is essentially an online magazine – global quarterly, local monthly. Our monthly ecovillage supplements, with Crystal Waters Ecovillage being the first, is a way for ecovillage residents to network and publicise their activities. It also integrates an independent social media platform for anyone interested in ecovillages and permaculture, or regeneration and sustainability, and more! See: https://www.ecovillagevoice.com

International author, workshop facilitator and Permaculture teacher Starhawk from US will visit Australia to be the special guest for the Australiasian Permaculture Convergence in Brisbane in April 2020, hosted by Northey Street City Farm. Amongst her busy schedule she’ll join Robin Clayfeild at Crystal Waters Permaculture Village to offer a 3 1/2 day Social Permaculture in Action Workshop. Everyone will be welcome, even if they aren’t attending the Convergence. Dates are 7th to 10th May 2020. Starhawk has a special gift in offering practical and elder wisdom in a straightforward and impassioned way with her decades of experience in social action, cultural change and Permaculture always guiding the journey. The Amazing Facilitation Team at the Social Permaculture Course in UK a few years ago with Robin on the left and Starhawk on the right. Photo by Dana Wilson

By Erin Young Social Permaculture is a nature-informed regenerative design framework for social systems; with particular focus on people care. Social Permaculture is regenerative social design. ​Here is a sample of the permaculture principles and how you might see them at play in social design: Design from patterns to details Circle structure used for meetings and classrooms. Circle rounds in a meeting use slow and small solutions to hear each person in the group, getting into the details of their input in an effective way. Circles support transparency, being the most efficient pattern for all members to see each other while connected to a common unity through the central space. Use and value diversity The eight forms of capital spread ‘wealth’ to eight key areas of resource availability (capital), rather than loading it with financial assets (as is most common). The eight forms of capital include natural, material, experiential, social, …

In our February online Q&A session, we explored the question: How do we juggle many balls, projects, & aspects of groups and businesses? The first part of the question explored was: How many balls do you juggle, and how well do you juggle them? Depending on how active each project is, the amount of structure needed varies.  When there’s more project activity, there tends to me more structure.  There also tends to be less time for self-care and personal relationships – these are typically quick to be reduced in attention.  Also, being on screens was noted as part of the juggle – needing balance between time, energy and eye-health.  Trips out-of-town were noted as a tricky aspect for juggling all the pieces of life; where balls tend to get dropped easily e.g. responding to emails after times away with no internet. We then explored planning tools that groups utilise to …