Last weekend the national council for Permaculture in New Zealand (PINZ) got together in Hamilton. We meet up a few weekends a year to do the stuff that we can’t really do on skype and it is a great opportunity to put in some serious hours together. This is my second year as chair of the council and I am really proud of what a great team we have. Many of us have been working together for a few years, and this year we also got two new members who bring exciting new skills and energy to the group.
We have made a lot of progress and a big part of that has been a result of our focus on strategic planning. The strategic plan itself is coming along well, but it is the process itself that is so important. Working through the key priorities of the organisation, with members input, means that we are able to effectively apply our energy and resources for the greatest impact. This means better supporting some of our current initiatives, such as the annual hui and the website, and developing some new ones, such as developing a media plan.
The strategic plan helps to be clear what the essential functions of the hui and the website are and so to make the best use of them. Since the website is one of the most important public faces of permaculture, making sure that the look and feel is right is important. PINZ is currently considering a logo change and that will be the basis to redesign the website, newsletter and all of our literature. This is all part of preparing to engage much more proactively with media, political decision-makers, allied movements, and the general public.
In line with that, council has made a decision to take up the invitation of the Australians to host the Australasian Permaculture Convergence (APC) in 2019. The last APC in Aotearoa was in 2012 and it was a hit. We will be looking at how we can use the opportunity to showcase permaculture to the nation. We are also looking at the possibility to extending it to make it a Pasifik Permaculture Convergence. There are a number of links that individual NZ and Australian permaculturalists have made over the years with Pasifikan permaculturalists so it seems like a good opportunity to strengthen those links.
To this end, we are initiating a number of scholarships. Last year we helped raise around $1000 through crowdfunding to support a permaculturalist from South America to attend the International Permaculture Convergence (IPC) in Cuba. We would have preferred to support someone from the Pasifik but none applied to the UK permaculturalists who organised it. For next year we want to specifically invite applications to PINZ from across the Pasifik (including Aotearoa). The intention is to create a crowdfunded scholarship to attend the IPC in the UK. If it is successful we would also like to create a crowdfunded scholarship for a Pasifikan permaculturalist to attend the annual hui in Aotearoa.
This is all part of a strategic approach to building links into different communities. Alongside this we are also keep to build on and support initiatives aimed at taking permaculture more into the business world. One of the intentions of the 2019 convergence is to create media opportunities to talk about permaculture with the public and to provide an event that can demonstrate the relevance of permaculture for the challenges we face in the world today.
There is a lot of work involved in developing these ideas and bringing them into reality, but it is an exciting prospect. The permaculture community has so much to offer Aotearoa and the world and the PINZ council is feeling inspired about being part of the next step in getting permaculture out there and into people’s understanding.
(adapted from permaculture.org.nz)
Monkeywrenching 