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Upcoming Events
End of Year Gathering
When: Sunday 6 December 2009, 5.30pm – 8pm
Where: Milsons Point, under the Harbour Bridge
What: Picnic by the harbour... please bring food to share
Why: Time to relax and have some fun before many of us take a break over Christmas/New year
Who: All members of your family and friends and new people are especially welcome
Registration: Send an email back if you can join us, to lyndall@scev.org and say: ‘coming x 1, 2, etc’ on the subject line....too easy!
Please bring picnic chairs, rug, anything to make us more comfortable and happy. Also appreciate any special drinks, food, games, etc from your traditions and a wrapped gift of any description, costing no more than $10.
Looking forward to seeing you there - hope you can join us.
Lyndall (0419279711) and Dave (0402060768)
*By train: Get off the train at Milson's Point Station, walk towards the harbour down Ennis and Broughton Streets. We will be down the bottom of the hill either under the bridge or to the left opposite the Opera House.
Scams and Philanthropy
Sadly the ‘PHILANTHROPY NETWORK PROJECT’ that Lyndall mentioned last month was an internet scam and if you are interested you can read more about it in her latest blog. She asked the scammers for $1M either as a gift or a 5 year interest free loan to the SCEV Inc Assoc for the deposit on the Narara land and, of course they would be forthcoming AFTER she had done this and that! BUT if you know of any genuine source of philanthropic funds, don’t hesitate to contact Lyndall lyndall@scev.org
Read More >
Project Update: Plan for Partnering with a Developer
by Lyndall Parris
 Some of you may have met Simon Magri, one or our developer partner prospects and a good bloke. He is heading off to Melbourne with his wife and young son to take up a position in the sustainability field. We wish him well and hope that one day he will unleash his new skills and learnings on our Ecovillage project.
We are talking to a couple of other development companys with partnership possibilities and have outlined a possible way forward as a basis from which to start a conversation.
- Form a resident group
- Identify a potential site
- Find a Developer partner
- Feasibility – will it work? the site, the budget (members could provide 50% funds/buy the land), the developer, the group?
- Secure the land
- Develop step-by-step plan: How we could work together...present to members for approval and buy in.
Creating something beautiful and important. Example:-
a) Very small group programming (writing down what we want) & schematic design with designer – separation of the car, pedestrian pathways, kitchen facing pedestrian pathways, centrally located community facilities).
b) Take to wider community - possible site layout and basic plans presented to members at a joint developer/members workshop, for improvement and input – the site, the Community Centre, private dwellings
Blocks for sale: single family detached homes – architect designed &/or group architect designed according to village covenants.
Developer provides:
Town/row houses
Single family duplexes homes
Apartment building
Other? - motel style, dormitory
- Collect some cash from members* – existing members start outreach and marketing, establish pre-sales. [*members = potential future residents ie have paid some money]
- Can Developer/Member partnership go ahead?
- Revise development/construction budget
Prioritise extras
- Choose final design consultants (M. Mobbs says: get consultants to buy a place in the village!)
- Site plan, Community Centre plan, developer-provided, private dwellings plans drawn up.
o standardisation – reduce number of unique buildings and floor plans
o Kitchens & bathrooms – flexible, adaptable, standard basic design & show how to change after they move in. (Idea from “The Cohousing Handbook, Building a Place for Community”)
o After final community consultation and approval, do not allow customisation before or during construction process – extra cost to community as well as individual & less ‘damage’ to the community.
- Build working site model
- Community approves design then gets out of the way
- Developer scheduling & construction
Utility & site engineering, housing construction
- Members continue with outreach and marketing and building community.
Visualising our Ecovillage
by Lyndall Parris
 Tom originally from Scotland has recently dropped into our lives. He has sensational computer design skills and is interested in doing some visuals on a sustainable project…..voila SCEV!
A car load of us drove to the Central Coast during the week. We walked the Narara land, contemplated the aspect, contours, existing buildings and land use. Kim took some photos and Tom is going to draw up a few images which we hope will generate more discussion and get our creative juices flowing. We are very familiar with the wonderful Wendy’s classic ‘cartoon’ images of village life through the website, which launched the whole project in the beginning and, are still the basis of our website today. If you would like to add to Tom’s process or have any photos or images that may help him, please send us an email and we can put you in touch with Tom.
View the photos >
Featured Community Member
Peter Adderley
[Peter has given/is still giving the project some HUGE leg-ups]
 I grew up in Turramurra where we had plenty of bushland, magic caves, yabbies and the odd bunyip to explore. Both my parents were scientists but both had extremely wide interests which passed on to us kids. I had ambitions of doing science at uni but life got in the way and at the tender age of 22, I found a thing of wonder in Japan. Six months later we married and in 1974 we moved to Wyoming, not more than 5 minutes' drive to the Narara Research Station. Before long Mami found herself working at the station and so began a long love affair with the Research Station and Strickland State Forest next door. We took a friend of mine, a Japanese Ikebana teacher into the forest one day and he gasped at seeing the Bunya pine fronds, stating that each one would be worth over ten dollars in Tokyo. In more recent years, I was almost reduced to tears when a huge pile of overburden from the expressway washed down into Narara Ck serving to destroy the canopy and let the weeds in. But my career was mainly in electronics and computing. For a long time I have been interested in the basic concepts of sustainability and the principles of cutting down on resource wastage. I was angered by the government's intention of selling the Narara land but very relieved when I heard that a small group wanted to buy it for the setting up of an ecovillage. Although I cannot see ourselves moving in to the ecovillage in the early stages, I will do everything in my power to facilitate the reality of such a dream, and I already feel very much a part of the community.
Read More >
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