During the EuPC in Ireland, which took place between August 8th and 13th, 2018 in the Wicklow mountains, daily EuPN-meetings took place.
We used the arrival day of the 8th to discuss and clarify how we would want to spend the following days and what we would like to get out of them. We wanted to take ourselves through a process which started out with a vision: in 2023, we want to have a big party to celebrate our achievements as the European Permaculture Network. How do we get there?
The EuPC started on the morning of the 9th with an Elders-panel. Ten people shared what brought them to permaculture and where they are at now. At the end of this panel, we had the opportunity to present the EuPN, to outline its roots at the European Permaculture Institute and to mention the vision that we are working towards. It was important to us to say that the EuPC is the meeting space of EuPN. At the end of this mini-presentation, we invited the EuPC-participants to join our first session: to plan the party in 2023.
The questions during the party planning sessions were: What do we celebrate? What are our achievements in 2023? And who will be invited? This was quite a big session with about 30 people joining.
From here, we worked in small groups and started to design an action plan of how to make those achievements and the party happen.
During our discussions about the party it became very clear that we want it to be an event which is happening decentrally across Europe, so that we cut down on CO2 for travelling, and also so that we can involve as many people locally and regionally as possible.
And you can save the date already: it will be on the first weekend of May in 2023 - on the International Permaculture Day!
The groups that met were:
The questions during the party planning sessions were: What do we celebrate? What are our achievements in 2023? And who will be invited? This was quite a big session with about 30 people joining.
From here, we worked in small groups and started to design an action plan of how to make those achievements and the party happen.
During our discussions about the party it became very clear that we want it to be an event which is happening decentrally across Europe, so that we cut down on CO2 for travelling, and also so that we can involve as many people locally and regionally as possible.
And you can save the date already: it will be on the first weekend of May in 2023 - on the International Permaculture Day!
The groups that met were:- EuPC-working group - discussing the future of the EuPC => info about this will follow
- Education working group - blending EuPN-education issues with IPEN-issues and integrating IPEN into EuPN => the network will be kept updated
- Communication working group - discussing information flows and different media => this will be continued in the online meetings of the group
- a group that developed a draft of an action plan, putting the future achievements into goals and then thinking about how they could end up in a sensible and doable order => a team will continue to work on this and discuss possible funding options towards reaching these goals