CAP OP 3: Concluding Remarks/ Process Reflection

             These workshops have the potential to get more people involved in permaculture in my locale.  There are two people that have been to the first two workshops and are already making sure they have a spot in the next one.  That makes me excited!  I hope I can live up to Bill Mollison’s quote “A good permaculture teacher will create a new teacher for every 40 students”.  To coincide with these workshops I will be creating a portfolio of classes that I teach.  For each workshop I will be looking to refine my approach to them.  Learning through the doing I will take notes on what works well, what was challenging, what I might do differently and any next steps I will need to take to make the workshop better the next time I do it.  I would like to also start gathering feedback from attendees to help me refine the workshops.  These workshops can be a starting point for others to take the Permaculture Design Certification (PDC) from me in the future.  I will be offering a PDC for the first time this year but I will be working out the kinks with some students that I’ve already coordinated with. My next output packet will be about developing a whole new approach to give and take the permaculture design course.

             I like the design method and framework that I’ve utilized for the last two outputs.  They feel better than what I’ve used in the past.  The process of making output packets the Gaia U way is still foreign to me.  The design of the output packet and the design of the project I am involved in seem to confuse me about what I’m really supposed to be doing with it.  It seems that if I were to do the project that I’m involved in now that I would be able to continue this output along with the progression of the project it involves.  Instead I have to separate the two a bit.  I know that I am getting good practice in project management, articulation of goals, reflecting and much more but when I finish an output long before the project it is related to is finished I feel as if I’m missing some connections that I might be making if I was to coordinate the timing of each together.  I intend to utilize this practice beyond Gaia U. and look forward to being able to connect the practice of output packets and projects in a coordinated timeline. Other than that I have been excited to get the word out on this workshop series and build my reputation.