I presently live in the Upper Yarra Valley east of Melbourne where I am actively involved in creating a "Community Environment Park" with other like-minded and dedicated folk. It is a 7ha rural site which is to be a training and education facility for sustainable living solutions. In one sense it is to be a "non-residential eco-village". I would dearly love to be actively involved in an initiative such as SCEV which combines a like-principled residential component with activities like a community farm, sustainable craft workshops & studios, and training facilities of this ilk, and which is close to public transport infrastructure linking to a major city(I still love and am enriched by much of the culture there, as well as recognising the necessity of economic sustainability). I am involved in a Sustainable Food Network in my region which engages with the urgent issue of food security, a subject that has interested & concerned me for the past 30 years. For 19 of those years I ran a busy wholefoods store and cafe in Sydney and my heart is never far from this vibrant part of the world or its many good folk. Since then I have visited communities at Findhorn and Damanhur in search of answers and solutions as well as wanting to connect with the global eco-village community. Now living in a typical small town I have created most aspects of life that fulfil me, and yet my life is even more dependant on "the car" in which I spend a frustrating amount of time. The SCEV vision is a grand one which captures the issues that face this and future generations: living in dynamic harmony with the environment that sustains us, and in functional and joyful community with our fellow man.