We discussed a project led by Alanna and David, who have purchased 37 acres of land and are in the beginning stages of building a community in Burnsville, NC. They have already gathered interest from around 15-20 people who want to be involved in their project. Alanna is overwhelmed by the idea of putting together a huge proposal and model for their intentional community. She believes in finding the right people to collaborate with, building relationships, and trust over time. The vision is a regenerative health and wellness retreat, including a treatment center for addiction and mental health using plant medicines, incorporating organic farming as part of the treatment program. They are actively looking for thought leaders and change agents to help build out their model.
Charlie, Letty, Kerry and Gabriel shared information about their respective projects which involve integrating a community currency. Charlie is working on a 2200 home regenerative garden village in the UK that will use local currencies. Gabriel is working with Kerry on a ten acre co-housing project with job creation and a token currency to create value through real property. Letty and Neil are developing Regen8, an ecosystem designed to be like a SEEDS community of people supporting regenerative development projects. Kerry mentioned the work study programs at Highland Lake Cove as well as construction projects such as sweat lodges. They discussed the timeline for integrating the community currency with the construction projects, legal structures, and how this scale of project may not attract negative attention from regulatory bodies.
Kerry, Gabriel and Charlie are all working on projects that embody the eight forms of capital. These include things like community currencies, time banks, blockchains based on nature-based solutions, current credits, regenerative finance and regenerative agriculture. Regen8 is a network designed to support regenerative development startups in order to create thriving places, communities and cities through a fund plus a network based on the eight forms of capital. It also serves as a resource for those who want to develop this kind of model but don't know where to start. In addition, Charlie has been using something called the One Planet Framework which consists of ten principles that cover all eight forms of capital. This framework has been used in large scale food chains and warehousing companies around the world in order to value decrease on land value without relying solely on market terms.
This group of people discussed various projects that they are working on, from local markets and full circles of people engaging in small scale economies to spiritual capital and Native American peacemaking. They all recognize the importance of recognizing different forms of value beyond money and how spiritual capital can be tracked indirectly through energy in a building or meals. Everyone appreciated being able to come together to discuss their work and share knowledge with each other.
Charlie Fisher presented Salt Cross Garden Village (SCGV), a 2,200-home development in Oxfordshire (England) covering 63 hectares of land. Comprised of a mix of tenures, with half the dwellings affordable, it is one of the more advanced of the UK Government's 44 'Garden Communities Programme' sites.
SCGV is coordinated as a Distributed Cooperative Organisation (DisCO). Membership and governance make use of the affordances of distributed technologies, in order to lighten administrative load via automation. Active participation in SCGV’s running should not be limited to the time wealthy. Longer-term, participatory governance is incentivised and compensated via a complementary currency. Participatory budgeting fosters literacy and experience in democratic management, and the creation of a local currency facilitates community wealth.
Presentation of the Me-We Gamification Program - a gamified design thinking process and program to help groups solve complex problems.
Update on Highland Lake Cove sweat lodge, cohousing project
Presentation of The Womb by Leemor Chandally, a pilot project to co-create an emergent physical community space that embodies feminine values as a place and process (its planning, construction and stewardship)
Andrea Herrera of Redonda & Co presented El Santo, a 1000 hectare farm 50 km from Madrid, Spain with a vision to be a model for regeneration, in which to found a pioneering institution that continuously creates local and global value and impact. See attached deck (currently only in Spanish, English version in development).