Posted by admin | Posted in Futures Conversation | Posted on 11-06-2010
Are you interested in the big picture of what’s happening in the world, from financial uncertainty, to peak oil, and climate change . . . little things like that, and how we might respond to these mega-changes here in the Frontenacs?
How we might be more “resilient,” taking care of ourselves a bit better, growing a bit more community, having a few more skills to meet uncertainty – these are the things we give air time to at our monthly Futures Conversation, held the second Sunday of each month, 7:30 pm, currently at the Medical Centre at the south end of Sharbot Lake. (Downstairs, summer entry from ground level at the back facing the lake)
It’s not an intellectual discussion about what’s “really” happening since everyone will have their opinion. It’s more about what we can actually do locally to make ourselves and our community a bit stronger.
The first meeting was June of 2009, most often there’s 6-10 people, and there’s a sense that this will be increasing. There are quite a few who want to come but are busy.
If this sounds like something you’d like, come on along, or give a call if you have any questions. Andrew at 613.279.2288.
For the last twelve months a small group has met the second Sunday of each month to imagine the local future and how we might meet uncertain or hard times and do better than we might all on our own.
We meet with a format of sorts from 7:30 to 9:30 approximately . . . and they stick around till midnight talking. So far I’ve been the host and “space holder” for the evening’s first part. Long experience in groups have created or confirmed in me a strong desire to hold some form so that everyone can be heard and we stay focused on our subject. My experience has been that when we sit and chat with no focused question before us and no one driving, that the meeting wanders, people’s needs don’t get met and don’t come back.
Persistent themes come up, fade, come back again! Among them, the desire to have more young people round here and to support them, toot cellars (an in joke), a local trading circle (we do some of this informally and plans for a bulletin board are likely to tip over into happening shortly), helping with projects, marketing the area as a go-to place for sustainabilistas escaping Ottawa, Montreal, T.O.
The Country Know-how column came out of the Conversations as did friendships, a wild-rice expedition, threads of social cohesion, fun nights.
There will be much more. Now that we’re a year old there’s a sense that action will be more possible and wanted. We’ve grown a bit closer, learned a bit more about each other.
Consider coming along some time and checking us out. Contact me if you like by writing to countryknowhow at frontenac dot net.
Bunkies, tiny houses, 10′ x 10′ structures, by whatever name received a lot of attention at the “Futures Conversation” last night. Although we were exploring possibilities that grasped our imagination during the evening, it wasn’t until we’d officially quit doing that that Tiny Houses strode onto the scene. They made a boisterous entrance and stayed a while.
We tended to see different advantages which suggested there were indeed a number of advantages from having Tiny Houses in our collective future. Lynn and I brainstormed a bunch of others after folks left. Must have been the coffee and home-made cheese from Suzanne’s cheese workshop!
I am dreaming in technicolour but let me count the ways Tiny Houses are cool:
- They could be the focus for a weekend course on building . . . Tiny Houses next summer. Folks could come from far and wide for cheap and learn how to build one . . . for one of us
- Local people have the skill to do the building, design the plans, provide the lumber
- They were deemed beautiful, like shipboard dwellings
- Folks who want a Tiny House could provide a mix of labour and money, with some elements of a community “bee” thrown in too with others who want a TH participating
- WOOFERS (Willing Workers on Organic Farms), or interns for doing farm work or land development could stay in the Tiny Houses while they help us with our work
- Folks who like non-conformist housing could build as wacky as they like, long as it’s tiny
- Tiny Houses would be natural resting perches for family or refugees from the city thinking of moving to Frontenac
This idea sprang from us collectively and we’ll explore it at the next Futures Conversation December 13th. If I were a betting man I’d bet Tiny Houses will have a role in our collective future.
