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

There’s a magical and nourishing event that happens monthly in Maleny called the ‘Maleny Seed and Harvest Swap’.

Robin was invited to be a guest speaker after the swap session during one gathering last year and has been going regularly since then to the swap.

It’s the most awesome system. People bring anything they have surplus or to swap from their gardens, lay it out on the tables, then at 9am, everyone wanders around and takes what they want or need. More people come in later, place things down and the gathering continues.

People bring produce, plants, cuttings, flowers, eggs, honey, dried herbs, seeds of course and you never know what else.

Robin brings potted edible plants, bunches of greens from the garden, surplus produce, most recently chillies and passionfruit, dried herbs like Perilla, Horsetail, Peppermint and seeds that are in abuncance.

Her presentation on the first occasion was about Perennial and Self Seeding Plants for an Abundant Permaculture Garden. Dom Tati came to be her helper and drew some delightful pictures of plants and flowers for the Species Lists she wrote up for people to photograph. The lists were just of current plants being harvested in her garden at that time of year.

On the 27^th of this month the people who go to both the Seed and Harvest Swap and the Maleny PermaBlitz will be coming on a 3 hour tour to Robin’s garden. Please feel welcome to come along. Meeting in the Crystal Waters Village area at 9.45 to carpool into the Lot.

Robin and Wronka met nearly 30 years ago when Wronka applied to study Pedagogy for three months with Robin and Skye at Crystal Waters as part of her University studies. She come from Germany and participated and helped with the ‘Advanced Permaculture Creative Teachers Facilitation Course’ and the Permaculture Courses that they were running.

In 1998 she returned the favour and hosted Robin and Skye in North Germany and organized the Creative Facilitators course for them to offer there, as well as touring them all around the Permaculture places in North Germany, including all kinds of wonderful inner Urban communities and gardens in Berlin.
More recently she attended Robin’s ‘Wise Women’s Weekend Retreat’ way up in the mountains in Switzerland as a birthday present to herself. She then drove Robin and helper Kym Chi to her home in a little electric car to the Lakes area and hosted them both beautifully.

Now, living in Switzerland and with a fantastic partner and grow up family, they all made the decision to spend a year travelling the world and exploring EcoVillages, Communities and great places and cultures.
Of course she brought her family to Crystal Waters and stay with Robin’s and friends in the garden at Kutamullamee (Lot 58). Here’s a photo of them all in the garden after they completed three weeks volunteering for the Build for Woodford Folk Festival.

A passionate and skilled group of 18 people from India, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Solomon Islands plus two University Professors (Kristen from UQ and Jagjit from Monash and India) and two student interns participated in a specially designed 3 day tour of places of interest in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland in mid December 2023.

Robin hosted the tour group with Raven’s help covering logistics and most admin tasks.

The program included beginning in Maleny with an Acknowledgement of Country, Lunch at an Indian restaurant and a presentation by Assistant Manager of 44 year old Maple St Co operative, a wonderful member owned food health food store. The afternoon completed with some shopping time and a tour of the Co ops, Collectives and points of interest around Maleny then a bus ride to Crystal Waters Permaculture Ecovillage and dinner with Yoav from ‘Good Food Vibes’ on the Deck at Crystal Waters.

Participants stayed over the two nights at Crystal Waters in the EcoPark which stretched to accommodate everyone.

The second day was a tour of Crystal Waters during the morning and a two hour interactive Permaculture learning session at the EcoCentre during the afternoon.

The last day’s program included at tour of Barung Land Care’s Seed Forest, plantings at Unity Waters’ Maleny Sewage Treatment Plant – Upgrade Disposal Forest & Tertiary Wetland and the new Barung Native Plant Nursery. This was of special interest to some of the participants who specialized or had needs for sewerage treatment solutions in their home regions.

The last component of the tour was a visit and guided tour of Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve, a remnant rainforest with views over the Glasshouse Mountains, a Rainforest Discovery Centre and a Café where everyone had lunch before heading back to Brisbane on the bus.

A great time was had by all, many new friendships forged and the feedback was very complimentary and encouraging of this type of program.

The annual build of The Sacred Union Labyrinth by 14 people over the week prior to Woodford Folk festival, coordinated by Robin and organized by a core group of four – Christine, Stephane, Rob and Robin, went very well despite extreme heat and then some rain.

The front entrance to the Labyrinth received a new mural art paint job, the guiding pennants got a solidifying make over and a quarter of the stone Labyrinth had some major drainage work done by hand!!! This drainage work turned out to be much needed due to rains during the Festival with thousands of people walking through the pathways then heavy, consistent rain on our pack down day.

Huge thank you to our Build Crew team and for Woodford Folk Festival for supporting us as a mini Department and Volunteers. Also big gratitude to Woodford Programming Department for supporting us as a Ceremony team (4 of us mostly – Robin Clayfield, Christine Clegg, Rob Clark, Stephane Cazard plus help from Raven, Caity, Britta and Brady) and our live band for the Ceremonies – (Andy Copeman, Rebekah Ray, Dave Rotherham and Natalie Richy) and for engauging the five acts who performed or presented in the space – Medicine Man Music (Andy Copeman and Laurel Hefferon), Olivia Rosebery, Heather Price with Michelle Neithe, Djuelu the Village Scribe (Rob Clark) and Rising Waves (Yoav, Steve and Caroline).

Such a diverse and beautiful festival and so many things to treasure, every time.

The last week of July promises to be a lively, creative and fantastic learning time.

It’s a year since Robin’s last ‘Dynamic Groups’ course. It’s her annual offering of this type of course at Crystal Waters and since Covid began she has only offered this once a year in her home community as travelling to other states and countries by invitation wasn’t possible.

The six day intensive runs from 23^rd to 28^th July and will be followed a day later by a big Permaculture Music gig with ‘Formidable Vegetable’ launching their new album. People booking for the course are recommended to stay the extra day and night and be part of the event.

More info about the ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ can be found on the FaceBook event here.

Treat yourself to some Professional Development and lots of fun and confidence building.

Contact Robin now to book your place.