APC14 — impressions & next steps

APC14 — impressions & next steps A glimpse into the impressions of participants to Australasian permaculture Convergence 14 in Canberra, April 2018.

Impressions

Australasian Permaculture Convergence 14 (APC14) was held over four days in April 2018 at the Greenhills Centre in Cotter, Canberra.

The convergence was preceded by the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) Permaculture Festival at Canberra City Farm and followed by courses and tours of permaculture places of interest. A photo essay of the ACT Permaculture Festival is found here: https://pacific-edge.info/2018/04/among-the-fruit-trees-the-conviviality-of-permaculture-festival-2018/

Harvesting thoughts

I asked a number of attendees at APC14 two questions to:

• provide feedback to organisers of APC14

• provide ideas for organisers of the next APC, in Brisbane in two years time

• get some idea of how the participants plan to apply permaculture in their lives.

The questions were:

• what were the peak moments of APC14 for you?

• how do you plan to use permaculture in your life?

A SONG TO START

Let's get underway with a song.

The participants

BRENNA QUINLAN

A resident of Central Victoria, Brenna was graphic documenter for APC14, recording highlights of the sessions and workshops on A1-size posters.

Brenna illustrated David Holmgren's 2018 book, Retrosuburbia. Here, she talks about the challenges of translating ideas in the author's head to graphics on the page.

COSTA GEORGIARDIS

Costa, a Bondi resident of Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, hosts ABC TV's Gardening Australia. Prior to that he hosted SBS TV's Costa's Garden Odyssey.

Costa trained as a landscape architect and is a popular speaker at community gardening and permaculture events. He hosted APC14.

ROSEMARY MORROW

Rosemary has worked in international development and in refugee camps. She is active with the Blue Mountains Permaculture Institute and, with Blue Mountains woman Lis Bastian, teaches permaculture design courses in her region.

ANNALIESE HORDEN and GUY STEWART

Annaliese and Guy teach permaculture design with Robyn Francis' Permaculture College Australia.

Guy is a consultant in renewable energy systems with Rainbow Power Company in Nimbin and previously worked on a local foods security project.

NOALA DEGASPERIS

Noala comes from Perth, Western Australia, where there is an avid band of permaculture practitioners.

APRIL SAMPSON-KELLY

From her Mt Kembla erie on the NSW South Coast, April leads an online permaculture design course and practices her arts of illustration, music and dance.

EGO LEMOS

Ego works with Panatil, the permaculture development agency in Timor Leste. At the convergence, Ego and Lachlan Mackenzie presented on their project, the production and publication of the Tropical Permaculture Guidebook.

ROBIN CLAYFIELD

A specialist educator in social permaculture strategies, Robin produces card games for permaculture education and is author of the book, You Can have Your Permaculture And Eat It Too (1996; Earthcare Education, Crystal Waters Ecovillage Queensland ).

Robin lives in Crystal Waters Ecovillage, just inland from Maleny in south-east Queensland.

SCOTY FOSTER

Scotty is a Canberra resident. He recorded many of the sessions at APC14 to place the edited recordings on Soundcloud.

Scotty has a program at radio 2XX Canberra, is on the communications team with the New Economy Network Australia and is involved in a solar energy co-op getting underway in the ACT.

LIS BASTIAN

Publisher of The Big Fix, an online journal of solutions, Lis teaches permaculture in the Blue Mountains of NSW with Rosemary Morrow. She is an active member of the Blue Mountains Permaculture Institute.