Output Package 2

Table of Contents:

1. Output Specification
2. Permaculture Design Course
   
   • Orientation and Context
   • Collaboration With Fellow Teachers and the Sustainable living Association
   • Acorn Model Utilization
   • Design Projects
   • Design Assignment (document download)
   • Conference Call Audio Clip
   • 2012 Sunrise Ranch PDC weekly agenda
   • PDC promotional brochure
3. Permaculture Programs at Sunrise Ranch Slideshow
4. Independent Study Project
5. Interview with Devon Bryne
6. Interview with Kevin Hicks
7. Wednesday Permaculture Sessions
8. Gratitude
9. Resource Review/Digiphon
10. Process Reflection
    
    • Self Review
    • Peer's Review of my OP
    • My Review of a Peer's OP

       This output package is intended to be viewed by my Gaia Advisors and Associates, Sunrise Residents, Sunrise Ranch Work Study Participants, and students who are interested or associated with any of our permaculture related programs.

     This package covers the Sunrise Ranch 72 Hour Permaculture Design Course, the Permaculture Work Study Program, orientation week, and the Independent Study Project (an action learning endeavor that each student can touch into.  

     The best way to navigate this page is to simply scroll through until something catches your eye or you notice something perk your interest.  Various readers will likely have different purposes for exploring the page, so I welcome the intuitive approach to navigating this page.  If you are strapped for time some highlights include the interviews with Devon and Kevin, and certainly the YouTube slideshow.  For my Advisors and Peer Reviewers, the best procedure would be to read down the entire left hand column and then down the right because that is the relative chronology of events.

   Supportive of, but not a part of the core of this output package are the three links below:

             To view the big picture vision and context of this project, please visit this link: http://icaafs.earth/view/view.php?id=860

             To see some videos of my personal journey and the world travels (including interviews with permaculture doctors in     Johannesburg, South Africa) that brought me into this lifestyle and career path please visit this link:  http://icaafs.earth/view/view.php?id=671

             To learn more about permaculture programs at Sunrise Ranch visit sunriseranch.org.

Orientation and Context

     In January of 2012 I announced my intention to host a 72 hour residential Permaculture Design Certification course at my community, Sunrise Ranch.  I included in my email blast all of the permaculture teachers who were present at the 2011 Colorado Permaculture Convergence.  At that convergence, there was a breakout session for all permaculture educators where we all sat down together and acknowledged the important role we are all serving in Colorado.  One of the bits of wisdom that came forth was that in order to avoid competition for students, we should be in greater communication with one another and find our niche as a teacher within our region.  Therefore soon after I had decided on my 2012 PDC dates, I announced my intentions to this group.  I was not sure what type of response I was going to get but what came back to me was enough to almost knock me off my horse.  First, I learned that there were two other design courses happening within a month of mine within 30 miles of one another--one the week before mine, and one the week after.  Secondly, I learned that a handful of other teachers were skeptical of my teachings skills and capacities.  The quote below is an excerpt from an email I received from a well-established permaculture teacher in the Boulder area, about 40 from where I live: 

"Hey Patrick,

     I've been contacted by 4 teachers in the area recently who are expressing concern about your PDC. I don't really know where their concerns are coming from, and since I have only taught in your course I can't vouch for your curriculum and teaching, not having seen it. I'm not interested in hindering you, but some of the concerns expressed lead me wanting more information, and I would rather get that from the source versus second hand. Do you mind sharing your curriculum document/notes with me? I will keep it to myself, not to share it with others. 

     My only concern, which applies to all permaculture teachers, is that what is being called a Permaculture Design Course actually covers all the required components, without additions of supernatural, overtly spiritual information. Not that I have anything against that, being rather contemplative myself, but it is not intended for a PDC.I want to be able to stand behind your work and course, but to do that due to concerns flying around, I need some counter evidence from you. Do you mind sharing your curriculum?"

     One can imagine the sinking feeling I had in my stomach after reading this email.  But rather than getting defensive, I interpreted the email as a call to excellence.  I happily shared my curriculum with the teachers who were expressing their concern and much to my dismay, the criticism continued.  They told me that my curriculum was not up to par and that they weren't able to back my course with their support.  On the one hand I was discouraged and my confidence as a permaculture teacher was challenged, and on the other hand, I saw an incredible opportunity to humble myself, open up to feed back, and ultimately improve the quality of my permaculture class.  This is because the same teachers who were challenging my curriculum were also willing to work with me on it and bring it up to a standard that they could stand behind. 

     Over the next couple of months I met with these other teachers and together we agreed upon what we all considered to be a high level PDC curriculum--one that most accurately replicated the material covered in the original PDC's taught by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren and yet was appropriate for our region. 

Collaboration with fellow teachers and the Sustainable Living Association

     One of the important pieces of advice that I received was to collaborate with at least one other teacher to teach and facilitate a permaculture design course.  In other words one should not try to teach a design course solo.  So I reached out to one of the two teachers who taught me in the PDC that I took in Zimbabwe in 2009.  His name is Joel Glanzberg and he lives in New Mexico.  Before we parted ways in 2009 we set an intention that one day we might teach a course together.  Luckily, Joel was available during the dates of the PDC I was going to host and he agreed to co-facilitate. 

     Joel is a fairly well known teacher in the South Western United States and with this new teaching arrangement, along with the support I had gained from the other permaculture educators, my course had suddenly gained a lot of momentum and substance.  In fact the two other teachers, Kelly and Jason, felt the substance being generated around my course and suggested we combine our courses so as not to compete for students. This was a reassuring gesture because in the beginning, my course was being perceived as sub-par, but now it was gaining the attention and collaboration of well-established teachers. 

     Combining courses turned out to be a fantastic thing to do however the logistics and finances of such an endeavor pushed my edge of professionalism.  Kelly and Jason's course was originally being supported and promoted by a popular Northern Colorado organization called The Sustainable Living Association.  Now that we were merging, we had to work out who was going to do what exactly and how much each party was going to be paid.  The reason this process pushed my professional edge is because I had to very clearly articulate each agreement I was making, follow through, and also hold others accountable. Below is a document which articulates the financial agreements I made with each teacher. 

     Once the logistics were worked out we then had to coordinate the curriculum.  This was also a very interesting process for me because I was the point of focus and essentially the leader of the course and yet I had the least amount of teaching experience.  I had to be open to the valuable inputs and opinions of the other teachers while at the same time keep the process moving forward.  In order to facilitate communication between the four of us (Kelly, Joel, Jason, and I), I learned to use a free teleconference program called "Free Conference Call. Com" Eventually we came up with the document below which shows which teacher is teaching what and when.  I am sure that this document will be used and modified for future permaculture design courses that I will teach so I am grateful to have created it. 

Acorn Model Utilization

      During my orientation with Gaia University at the Regenerative Design Institute in October 2011, I experienced a very clever social model that was implemented to facilitate a healthy group dynamic, build community, and delegate responsibility.  It was called the Acorn Model as well as the 8 Shields Model.  I found this social tool to be so effective that I too decided to implement it during our design course. 

     The model that I experienced at RDI had 8 divisions/delegations; each corresponding with a direction on a compass.  The different roles included responsibilities such as: South--timekeeping and accountability, East--inspiration and integration, North--Unity and facilitation of group dynamic, South West--caretaking, etc.  During a conversation I had with Dave Shaw on one of our guild calls, I asked him for some pointers on facilitating the 8 shields model.  He told me that one of the most important factors was that if you are going to introduce such a structure you should be sure to use it.  In other words, don't introduce it then allow it to fizzle out throughout the week.  Be sure to have tasks and assignments for each direction and to check in regularly throughout the week. 

     I decided that instead of using eight divisions, I was only going to use four.  This would better allow me to wrap my mind around each group's responsibilities.  I chose the East to be responsible for enthusiasm and group cohesiveness, South to be responsible for keeping time, for holding the class to our agreements, and for documentation, the West was responsible for caretaking the space and the participants, and the North was responsible for knowing each of the other participant's roles and responsibilities and offering support to them.

      By the end of the first day I had had a chance to get to know all of the participants slightly, and get a feel for their personalities and characters.  While they were finishing up their dinner I wrote each of their names on a small piece of paper along with a letter indicating a direction, for example N, E, S, or W.  I placed each person into a group that I most thought they would thrive in.  For example, if a person was boisterous and socialable I placed them in the east group; if they were taking notes all day I placed them in the South etc.  After the group finished up their dinner, I had them wait outside the meeting space while I set the atmosphere with cushions on the floor, soft lighting, candles, and gentle music.  When they came in, they sat in a circle and we did an exercise designed to help people get to know each other on a deeper level.   We divided into groups of about four per group and each person had two minutes to speak without interruptions to answer a specific question.  We did this about 4 times mixing up the groups between each question.  The questions were:  1. What is your deepest passion? 1. What inspires you?  3.  What limits you?  By the end of this exercise, we had attained a new level of camaraderie within the group and now it was time for me to distribute the little pieces of paper with their rolls on it.  The participants gathered with their respective groups and I met with each group individually to describe their roll and what was going to be expected from them in the coming 10 days.  I also gave them an assignment/mission.  The East had to come up with a group cheer/call that could be used to gather attention, the South had to create an attendance sheet and update it every day, the West had to create an altar that would be placed in the center of our space each day and the North had to learn all the other individual's roles. 

     Throughout the course, I gave new assignments to each group and held them accountable to previous assignments.  This created an incredible atmosphere of co-creation, co-ownership, and freed the facilitators up from logistical responsibilities so that they could focus entirely on content.  My belief from the beginning of the course was that if the team dynamic was strong then the course content would flow naturally and effortlessly and be potent and well received.  I am happy to report that this was indeed what happened and we had a wonderful course because of it!!

Design Projects

     If there was one thing lacking from the Permaculture Design Course that I took in Zimbabwe in 2009, it was a professional approach to creating a permaculture design.  The designs that were produced by myself and by other students in my class demonstrated a proficient understanding of permaculture design principals and philosophies, however they greatly lacked a professional appearance and were hardly accurate to true scale.  The reason for this is simply because the basic skills and tools of architectural drawing were not provided to us during our course. 

     Until recently, I had a nagging skepticism in the back of my mind with regards to permaculture design.  I whole heartedly believed that the style of thinking and concepts of design were accurate but I had not yet seen a design that compared to the detail that I had noticed in various engineering or architectural drawings that I had seen.  Granted, a permaculture design does contain different information than an engineering or architectural design, but even a professional landscape architectural design has sufficient detail and is of appropriate scale to be translated from a vision on paper to a landscape on the ground.  The reason I was so concerned with this is because I have intentions to compose a design for my home community but the people who I would need to share my design with are professional engineers and in order for them to take my designs seriously, the skills of professional drafting are very important to me.  Not only does a detailed design serve as a resource for a person to convey a vision, it also forces the designer to think through the project more thoroughly. 

     Luckily, before hosting my design course, I had an opportunity to sit in on another permaculture design course that was being offered in Lyons Colorado by two friends of mine, Laura Ruby and Spencer Branson.  Much to my satisfaction, Spencer had graduated with a degree in landscape architecture and was bringing his skills of professional design into the world of permaculture.  He taught the skill of triangulation and the use of an engineer's scale (ruler) to accurately translate what we measure in the field onto paper.  He also shared some technological tips on how to use Google Earth and Google Sketch Up to produce a professional looking design. 

     I felt as if a big void in my understanding of permaculture design had been filled and I was excited to share them with my class.  It became a sincere intention of mine to give my students the confidence with their design skills that would allow them to one day produce designs for others---not just for friends or family but for clients who would expect a professional looking design such as institutions, businesses, communities, and municipalities.

     In order to accomplish this goal, I was sure to incorporate as much drafting skills as I could into the time allotted for the map making portion of our curriculum.  I also made gathered as many already existing maps that we had of the property and used Google Earth and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) available to the students so that they could be sure their maps were accurate and to scale.

       Out of the 15 participants in the Permaculture Design Course 7 of them stayed on the ranch to begin a Permaculture Work Study Program.  Prior to their first day of work, Sunrise Ranch hosted a week long orientation program.  In addition to games, teambuilding activities, and making new friends, the 2012 Work Study Participant Orientation was a "getting to know you" time for the participants and the members of the Sunrise Ranch Community.  All this culminates with a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park where we see our spirits from a new perspective and an unwritten summer with lays ahead.