Welcome to EcoReality!

From MediaWiki

Revision as of 00:41, 24 June 2012 by Jan Steinman (Talk | contribs)

(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Jan demonstrates cheese making techniques to students. Let us know when you'd like to take a workshop!

We are developing an ecovillage in the South Gulf Islands of British Columbia, Canada. The ecovillage is working to be a model of co-operative, sustainable land habitation and land use and features public outreach and education as included goals.

EcoReality has acquired 43 acres of the former 104-acre Hughes Farm in Fulford Valley, 61 acres of which is to become community farmland. This land features large, irrigated fields, riparian areas on two year-round streams, and young forest. It backs on the Burgoyne Bay and Mill Farm public parks, which protect nearly the entire watershed of the two streams.

We are seeking members who can help us become debt-free through investment in the co-op, which at a certain level, provides habitation and building rights. People of exceptional skill with fewer financial resources are also encouraged to begin a process of involvement that may ultimately result in membership and habitation.

Shannon looks on as Anna dries off newborn doeling Asita.

What's new?

The cheese making workshop that was to be held Sunday, 24 June has been cancelled. Let us know your preferred dates for re-scheduling!
The Gulf Islands Driftwood newspaper featured our invasive species intake program in a newspaper article.
Check out our farmhouse concert and greenhouse celebration and more, in our latest newsletter.
Our new annual report, looking back on 2011, is now available.
Our seed and plant database is now searchable on-line -- try a seed search!
Launching of our medicinal herbs project.
Completion of our yellow house skylights project.

About our plans

Our new commercial propagation greenhouse is pumping out the vegetable starts!

We have a small core group of financial stakeholders, our members, who are currently working on the structure and organization of the ecovillage, including documents on finance, ownership, governance, membership procedures, business plans, values, vision, mission, purpose, land acquisition, and much more.

The members are aided by a larger circle of friends, family, and interested people, known as our Advisory Council. Many of these dedicated folk hope to live in our ecovillage someday; others are simply interested in assuring our success.

We think it is important to like each other, and to be confident that we have shared values, so new members go through a six-month provisional member period, during which they take part in agreement-making, but do not have blocking power. Provisional membership can be terminated with thirty days notice by either the provisional member or the coop.

About this site

This site is in the form of a wiki, which is a collaborative authoring system. Feel free to browse as you wish, but editing or adding pages is available only to EcoReality members and their Advisory Council, which you can join with no obligation if you would like to help develop content. There is a User's Guide for the software we are using that may help you navigate.

What's next

The next thing to do would be to visit any of the links to the left, particularly the entry points, which are pages that tend to refer to lots of other pages. Once you've looked around, if you think you might want to contribute to our evolution -- and possibly live in our ecovillage someday -- filling out a simple form will let you join in the fun as a member of our Advisory Council.

If you'd like to visit, please check out our visitor information, then check out our meetings, work parties and potlucks to find one that fits your schedule. We may be able to arrange visits at other times, but please contact us first.

Want to keep in touch?

We offer multiple ways to get involved with EcoReality, such as:

Use the form at the top-left of any page to sign up for our low-volume emailing list. You'll typically get a newsletter once a month, and possibly a few special announcements in-between.
"Recent changes" is automatically updated whenever pages on this site are changed. You can always find recent changes in the links on the left. Checking it each time you visit will keep you on top of what's happening.
Advisory Council members who have activated their accounts have the finest degree of control, via automatic email notification when pages of interest change. Set your Preferences to enable notification, then simply click on the "watch" tab of any page you want to track, and you will receive email notifying you of changes to that page.

Thanks for visiting, and if you find this interesting please contact us!