CAP OP 1: Output Packet Plan

            My business, Love Creek Center for Permaculture is 3 years old now.  Part of my business is producing locally grown vegetables, another part is permaculture consultation and design and another part is permaculture education.  I live in a rural area where permaculture isn’t well known so part of being a permaculture designer here is educating people about permaculture.  To bring permaculture into people’s lives I’ve given several workshops in the past few years, teaching some of the local population about permaculture.  For the past 3 years I’ve written an article, Permaculture Perspectives, for a local monthly publication, the Calaveras Chronicle.  So after bringing a little bit more awareness to permaculture and what I’ve been up to I’m eager to brand my business. 

            Upgrading my logo. 

            I had a simple logo created about a year ago.  It is basically a circle with a spiral inside of it.  My vision was to somehow use the same basic structure but adding some type of cornucopia imagery to the spiral.  I’ve recently had the inspiration to use a Fibonacci spiral accompanied with insects, plants and animals that utilize the Fibonacci sequence in some way.  Here is a video that inspired that vision. A logo is great way for people to begin to recognize a business.  If I put the logo out with my publications, workshops schedules and food products people will begin to recognize the image and be more and more intrigued by what I’m doing.

            Building web presence!  Using social media I want to promote permaculture and my business. 

            I’ve created a little bit of a web presence yet I am nowhere near the quantity of content I want to provide.  Most of it is not setting the time aside to develop content.  Some of it is lacking the knowledge to make the whole process easier.  The main website I have is where I plan to host content of the projects that I have done.  I’ve used my blog as much of my journaling for Gaia University.  More of my journaling has been  

Here is a list of the websites I have worked on for my business.

Google site- https://sites.google.com/site/lovecreekpermaculture/

Blogger- http://lovecreekpermaculture.blogspot.com/

Youtube- http://www.youtube.com/user/Lovecreekpermacultur?feature=mhee

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/pages/Love-Creek-Center-For-Permaculture/299393599791

I also have a separate Gmail account for my business, which I communicate with as my business. 

            What kind of content do I want to create?  Well, since my business is production oriented, permaculture education oriented as well as consultation and design oriented I would like to represent all of these aspects of my business.  While I have developed the whole thing as an integrative system the target markets may be a little different between them, so I need to organize my approach to promoting each accordingly.   

            I want to represent the market garden as a low impact production system that provides fresh, local and seasonal goods.  I want to make the decision to buy my produce an ethical decision by supporting the local economy, investing in food security and at the same time reducing the environmental impact of food production.  A reference for customers to learn more about the produce they get in their CSA bags with pictures and ideas for recipes will also give my customers more connection to the food they are getting.  

            As far as the permaculture consultation and design aspect goes I want to build content that has to do with the projects that I have done on site at the Love Creek Center for Permaculture.  Primarily promoting my ability as an integrative designer.  My own permaculture site is the best example I have.  There are many design elements that have been integrated into the site.  These include all of the land-based projects I worked on for my first year at Gaia University which include a subterranean heating and cooling system greenhouse (SHCS), Hydraulic Ram Pump, and mushroom cultivation projects. I have also worked on some grain/ legume production for calorie crops, did some double digging, sheet mulching, food forestry, seed saving projects just to name a few things I want to promote and highlight at the Love Creek Center for Permaculture’s project gallery.

            Building up my reputation as an educator is one of my goals for the educational aspect of my business.  The other aspect is educating people about permaculture to live a more sustainable lifestyle.  I plan to continually develop my education curriculum each year.  Adding new elements to my site and adding their integration to the system to the education curriculum. So far this year I aim to include educational opportunities that are integrated with many of the design elements I’ve included at the Love Creek Center for Permaculture.  Most of my projects with Gaia University will fit well into the education curriculum.  Creating output packets for specific projects has increased my competence of each subject and made me more qualified to teach them.  My continued work within the other subjects also gears me up to refine my teaching approach to them.

Following is a framework for the social media sites I either use already or am interested in adding to my social media.  I adapted it from a mind map created on Mind Meister, a social mind mapping program.

          I plan to use some of my learning support budget to further develop my social media.  There is an intern living on site that has experience with website development, I plan to pay him to not only help me make my website better but teach me more about any tricks of the trade.

            My long-term vision has been one of creating a permaculture demonstration and education site to increase the use of permaculture design in the place that I call home.  I would like to empower people to make decisions that both benefit humans and nature together.  There is a definite lack of conscious, sustainable design locally.  Education is the key to create an increasing population of people that can act accordingly to live with nature rather than against it.  I could keep doing permaculture on my own but it’s more fun to do with others.  So the more that I put it out there the more it will catch on.  And the more it catches on, the more allies I will have in enhancing the sustainability of my community.

            In my first year at Gaia University I set the overarching goal of leading through examples.  I worked on several demonstration projects that I added to the Love Creek Center for Permaculture.  I continued to run the market garden there by planning, planting and marketing the produce.  I also applied my knowledge and passion for a certain subject to share beyond developing a permaculture demonstration site by creating a template for a book about mushrooms.  All of the output packets I created, the projects I have designed, and the food production I’m involved in have geared me up to start teaching people about all I’ve learned.  With the original intention of creating a permaculture demonstration and education site I’m ready to begin solidifying my participation in helping to educate people about permaculture and sustainable design.  With only a few permaculture minded people in my region I have come to realize that educating as many as possible is one of the best avenues for increasing the inclusion of permaculture design in my region.

            Completing my education at Gaia University will be a transition point for me to take my permaculture knowledge to the educational level.  It seems that there are so many solutions to the problems we face in this world, it’s just that the knowledge is not always readily available to people.  I would like to see more and more solutions in my region and to help facilitate this I want to educate people about possible solutions empowering them to create positive solutions.  To begin that process I am developing a sustainable living workshop series to host on site at the Love Creek Center for Permaculture.  Most of the projects that I worked on for my first year at Gaia University will become part of my workshop schedule.  As my schedule is already pretty busy running a market garden, a demonstration site and some other extra curricular activities I will only average 1-2 courses a month for the next 6 months.  Here is the list of courses that I have the competency to teach.   

Sustainable Living Workshop Series           

                        Mushroom Cultivation

                        Hydraulic Ram Pump

                        Subterranean Heating and Cooling System (SHCS)

                        Intro to PC

                        Gardening like a Forest

                        Permaculture Principles in Practice

                        Double digging

                        Fruit graphting

                        Garden planning

                        Nursery work

                        Prepping and planting

            I plan to launch this workshop series as part of the branding for the educational aspect of my business.  To accomplish this I plan to create a flier for a sustainable living workshop series.  This will allow people to see a complete list of the workshops associated with the Love Creek Center for Permaculture.  With them all listed together with a business logo I hope to brand this part of my business as a place for people to learn more about sustainable living and permaculture. Sustainable living education should definitely be a collaborative effort so I don’t intend to run every workshop solo. I am giving the option to create their own workshop for the series to my brother, Josh Bridges, and the intern, Brian Blount.  Eventually I would like to bring in other experts from outside of the area to help bring more sustainable knowledge to the region. 

            As part of local sustainable living education I was recently asked by a professor of Natural Resources, Tom Hofstra, at Columbia Community College to apply to become a teacher there so I can begin bringing sustainable living/ permaculture knowledge to the college level.  I will be sending my application in to the college as part of this output packet. For the past three years I have sat in on a mushroom identification course with Tom Hofstra as his assistant and have given mushroom cultivation demonstrations in the short field course for some practice in teaching.  I have to fill out the application, get my transcripts from UC Davis sent and go get a TB test.  Tom has asked me to come visit the education center the college has on Sonora Pass this summer to get more involved with the school.  I plan to look into teaching a summer mushroom identification course while I’m there this summer.   I’ve also learned about what grows well in my area and I have some good insight into growing food in my area.  At 4000 feet in the Sierra Nevada it is not the easiest place to grow vegetables in California.  The growing season is short so planting windows are limited and anticipation of the coming seasons is paramount to increasing production.  After about a decade or so of gardening when I was young and the last 5 years of market gardening I’ve become much more familiar with what grows well at my elevation and even warmer and colder climates in close proximity.

            I took my original PDC in 2005 at the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute (CRMPI).  Then I graduated from UC Davis in 2007 with a Bachelor of Science in Permaculture.  In 2009 I returned to CRMPI to take my permaculture teacher training so I could eventually teach my own Permaculture Design Course.  While I’ve been developing the site more to actually hold a PDC on site I have been toying with the idea of bringing the PDC to people in a different format.  While attending Columbia Community College I was lucky enough to take a class from Ted Hamilton.  His facilitation of students learning was unlike any I’d ever experienced before.  Rather than teaching us subject matter his approach was to help us learn how to learn through the Socratic method.  He wouldn’t cover material, didn’t lecture but instead inspired his students to come up with their own connections to the material through a set of exams.  The exams were available to students even before the class started so the duty of the student was to first comprehend the scope of what the exams invoke.  With confirmation of connections from the student by the teacher, we as students were able to further develop our own understanding of the subject.  Not only did we learn from the teacher but students also enlightened the teacher with connections he hadn’t made on his own.  This method encouraged a healthy exchange of ideas between students and the professor.  I went on to take six courses from Ted Hamilton and five courses from his wife, Paula Clarke.  I was more excited about learning how to learn than I had ever been.  They got me all charged up on educating myself.  By the time I got to UC Davis I was feeling a little let down as the teacher student relationship was not nearly as strong as what I had with them. 

            After feeling motivated to further my education and also start giving a PDC I sat in on a class that they co- taught in 2010, History and Philosophy of Science.  My goal of sitting in on the course was to better identify how they approached the amazing facilitation of learning they participated in.  I want to teach the PDC through the Socratic method.  So I wanted to learn how they developed their exams.  As other students were getting confirmation of their ideas for the exam I was getting confirmation of identifying the major assumptions, primary themes, concepts and processes that the teachers were trying to bring to the students attention.  After breaking down how they developed their courses I began to apply it to the Permaculture Design Manual.  I developed a set of exam questions that brought out the major assumptions, primary themes, concepts and processes that are inherent in the Permaculture Design Manual. Ted and Paula had been meeting with me once a week to help me develop my own exam.  At the same time I had been thinking about continuing my education with a master’s program.  They were encouraging me to continue my education and after looking into going back to UC Davis I was reminded about Gaia University.  I ended up getting letters of recommendation from them both for my Gaia U application.  In the midst of sitting in on their course I had applied to Gaia University and then went to my orientation at RDI.  Having developed most of the exam and now having to navigate myself through Gaia University I put the PDC project on the backburner.  Now I’m ready to undertake this endeavor once again.  I know that there will be some learning to do about it still.  So I plan to do a test pilot with the method with my brother and one or two more students.  I look forward to getting feedback from students and am excited to see the connections that students can come up with. 

            Offering a unique style of offering the PDC will further help brand my business.

            Socratic method

            Trial process with my brother and a couple of other students

            Tie into the branding of my business

            Creating the classroom will bring it all home by establishing myself more as a formal teacher.  Not only will there be a physical classroom but the mental space will be constructed as well.  

            While the site at Love Creek Center for Permaculture offers many great permaculture demonstrations it is definitely still a work in progress.  There are many more working demonstrations that will fit into the site that will come with time.  There are a sufficient amount of design elements present to hold many workshops on.  However to help finish the container for holding workshops I want to develop a classroom area where we have access to electricity, restrooms, multimedia and any other amenities that might be needed in a classroom setting.  It can be an indoor setting, an indoor/ outdoor setting or an outdoor setting that works well.  There needs to be a comfortable place where people can relax and be ready to participate in a learning environment.  I want to be able to have a white board or chalkboard to write on so a place to hang them is necessary.  Any videos, Powerpoint or other digital media will need a projector and place to hang a screen to share with students.  An area that is less sunny will hopefully work well enough. 

            One thing we have going for us in California is that in the summer when I aim to hold the majority of workshops it is usually sunny and dry.  This gives us the option of creating an outdoor classroom entirely.  However, there are a couple of possibilities identified.  One is to build a pole barn with a shed roof and open walls.  We could acquire most of the materials on site using poles that have already been harvested.  Any hardware for the framing and the roof materials would need to be purchased.   A site has been identified but we would need to bring electricity there. 

It would, however take the place of existing nursery space that works very well.  So we would have to move the nursery.  One benefit of this proposed building would be that we could incorporate our market garden packing station into it.  Another option to use is our outdoor entertaining space next to our pond.

Plenty of seating is available here.  There is a building close by with a kitchen for food preparation and beverages, a restroom and electricity.  We have a stage with a backdrop that may be able to be used for white boards and chalkboards and a movie screen.  It also happens to be well shaded so the projector screen should work reasonably well.  This option seems like it achieves the greatest benefit with the least effort so I’m leaning towards this.  We need to do some cleanup and repairs after we had a massive tree uproot and land on the stage last winter.  During our repairs we can identify means of achieving the goals of the classroom setting and implementing them.