GEN EUROPE COUNCIL MEETING
Damanhur, May 5th – 8th 2001

Present are all members of the council:
Agnieszka Komoch, President
Lucilla Borio, Secretary
Mete Hacaloglu, Treasurer
Leper Viola, Member
Jean Michelle Pochat, Member

Minutes: shared among the present

 

Agenda

A) Institutional aspects of the GEN-Europe Association

- Signing of the previous Council meeting minutes
- General GEN-Europe secretariat report
- Role and powers of the Council, agreements among Council members on commitments and tasks
- Update on the Sirius GEN-Board meeting decisions and new GEN structure development: implication on the GEN-Europe region; GEN-Europe international representation; GEN Vision and Mission statement
- Revision of membership
- General Assembly 2001 and Ecovillage Festival in Wolimierz, Poland, July 16/22

B) Financial strategy

- Report on budget/finances up to March 2001
- Budget planning for 2001/2002/2003
- Report on fundraising actions and grant proposals submitted (with Manuela Vullo)
- Sale of material: directory, videos, others

C) Activities and projects

- Update on the creation of a Middle East sub-regional node
- Update on Africa: report on the birth of the Senegal Ecovillage network; Ecocity 5 in Midrand, South Africa
- Update on the website and internet situation (mailing lists, Sitebuilder database, national networks pages)
- ICSA conference in Zegg, July 2001
- Attendance to national network meetings in the summer and other events
- Creation of a youth programme within GEN-Europe and Youth tour 2001
- Publications and future plans for the newsletter
- Education: projects for 2001 (Findhorn, Permaculture, Consensus workshop); educational initiative of the French Network with French speaking environmental associations.
- Ecovillage Travels
- Vision and Mission statement

A) Institutional aspects of the GEN-Europe Association

Secretariat Report

A detailed secretariat report was presented by Lucilla and can be requested at the office or viewed on our website at page (please insert address).
At moment the Torri office has good computer equipment: a Mac G4 was bought with a “Virtual PC” program in order to make it compatible with the PC based internet database (sitebuilder).
After the Board meeting in Sirius, we decided that Agnieszka will work more on the website aspect. We have to solve a compatibility problem because she has a Mac and a PC allows better access to work with the Sitebuilder offline. Tests are being made using a Virtual PC can be used instead of a normal PC.
We decided to contact Cyber Damanhur if we need help with setting up additional features on our website (e.g. a chat room for the youth project).
Because of the change in the GEN structure (GEN-International office being dismantled) space is becoming a problem at the Torri office and efforts will be done to restructure paper archives and shelf spaces. There are now 3 co-workers, each with own computer and working space.

We decided to adopt a "social welfare" policy about the economical support for the staff holidays or pregnancy (Cristina is pregnant in this moment). Staff can have four weeks of holiday/year, and Cristina will be allowed to be off work for three months with a part-time salary.

Only one response was received for the membership letter and the EV profile sent out from the secretariat in March (Bagnaia, Italy, answered). We will approach a number of non-GEN-E members EVs and offer them the opportunity to become part of the network; the assembly will also be a promotion opportunity.
We decided to make black and white copies of the “Why ecovillages” paper produced by Agnieszka for the European Union and send it to all GEN-Europe members.

Roles of the Council
Decision making on the e-mail:
All Council members have to read the council list at least once a week. We exchanged portable phone numbers in order to be reachable during travels:
Mete: +90 542 324 2340
Jean Michel: +33 (0) 6 1041 0434
Agnieszka: +49 (0) 171 835 3402
Lucilla: +39 349 159 1564
Lepre Viola: +39 348 3314 064

Decision making procedure: when a Council decision is requested, the "subject" field of the e-mail message has to state “decision”. No answer means “yes”. The deadline for answers has be specified in the body of the message (normally it's 7 days).

Lucilla requested that Council members are more active in providing website content (e.g. Middle East / Turkey).

The next Council meeting date and location will be decided at the assembly in Poland.

New GEN structure

The overall GEN budget from July 2001 to June 2002 will be ¤ 330.000, 42% less than the previous year. It will decrease by ¤ 80.000 every year. In 2001/2002 GEN-Europe allocation from Gaia Trust will be ¤ 64.000.
The role of the GEN international secretary has been taken over by Albert, Max and Lucilla (the GEN-trio).
Max is responsible for the programmes; Albert the organisational and financial development, Lucilla takes on the co-ordination of communication.

Budgets
Each region will get ¤ 64.000 for general office costs
South support: ¤ 16.000 in total (each region will get ¤ 33,3% = ¤ 5.200)
To Living and Learning Centres ¤ 16.000 in total
Next board meeting ¤ 19.000 (the “trio” is responsible for this money)
Reserve fund ¤ 13.000 (the “trio” is responsible for this money)

GEN-International funds: ¤ 64.000 divided in the following way:
16.700 to GEN-Europe
19.300 to GEN-OA
22.200 to the Americas

Each region should become stronger in fundraising and become increasingly independent from the overall structure. Since GEN-America is granted more money and GEN-E gets less, we request that the Americas do fundraising related with our region and activities.
However, we also agreed that the regions should not depend on the GEN-International funds in the future.

The GEN-Europe Council therefore agreed to top off the "international work allocation" from Gaia Villages (¤ 16.700) with ¤ 5.000 from our the buffer funds of budget, requesting that:
- Albert Bates of GEN-A fundraises for the international structure as a priority
- He is available to give GEN-E some support for fundraising matters
- He also does fundraising for the European programmes, or sends us information about possible funds available in the USA

Secretariat question:
In order to facilitate the transition from the International office, and in compliance with the GEN Board recommendation, the GEN-E Council agrees to extend the secretariat mandate of the Torri office for one extra year (until Summer/Autumn 2003).

GEN-E received from Gaia Villages an extra allocation of ¤ 2500 to ease the transition costs.

In relation with GEN-Europe taking on a share of GEN-International tasks, Lucilla proposes that Agnieszka works more continuously on a wage basis for website, fundraising, e-mails and other projects that might start in the future.
Hours: 27 per week
Cost per year (before taxes): ¤ 15.340
The proposal was accepted with 3 votes in favour and 2 abstained (Lucilla and Agnieszka). Agnieszka will thus have both staff and council functions.

GEN Board representation:
Mete Hacaloglu will be the GEN-Europe representative of the GEN-Europe Council at the Crystal Waters Board meeting in November. He will join the Elders mailing list.

Vision & Mission statement

We need to keep the diversity of the network in focus and accept that the wording might change from region to region, but we can also try to find a common language. The secretariat will prepare a new draft and send it to the Council list. The council members are allowed to make small changes in the text according to the context in which it will be used. In case of doubts, members shall check it with the council.
GEN-E does not see the necessity of having a universal document, as long as the network agrees on a common vision.

Membership:

we have at the moment 83 members, of which 28 full, 33 associated organisations/communities, 22 persons.

General Assembly 2001 / Activities Summer 2001

and further dates
10.07 – 15.07 Consensus course with Bea Briggs
16.07 – 19.07 Ecovillage Gathering / General Assembly
19.07 (afternoon) visit to the Czech village on the border
20.07: action to protect the mountain
21.07 – 22.07 International EV Festival
23.07 -> WAS (Polish Network) meeting.

Possible workshops:
Permaculture with Jane Hera (Findhorn)
Consensus with Bea Briggs
Drumming with Sloma ....
Choir with Martin Stengel (Sieben Linden)
Creation of masks or collective sculpture with Wiktor (Wolimierz)

Morning sessions will be used for plenary meetings, afternoons for workshops; evenings for slide shows and parties.

Morning session agenda (formal part, open only to members):
- creative presentation of each ecovillage
- presentation of the network (discussion of needs and future plans)
- explanation of the GEN-international structure
- approval of budgets and accounts
- discussion on future projects and developments
- reports and presentations from council members and secretariat staff (including programmes)
- feedback with requests and needs of members, and how can GEN-E support them
- networking actions among present ecovillages and national networks


Ecovillage Festival
We should set up a "festival committee" (through e-mails and telephone) that will take care of GEN-Europe participation at the festival. Announcements will be made in magazines like Green Pepper (EYFA) and others.

Content:
- bring the exhibition (captions should be translated into Polish, Agnieszka will contact Jemiolka about this)
- make contacts with the local people
- offer presentation of their ecovillages
- show films and slides

Agnieszka will go though the exhibition and report what EVs are represented and which need to be inserted. The GEN flyer featuring the 3 events will soon be ready and sent to all members.

Budget for the General Assembly:
showers and toilets ( grant to Wolimierz): ¤ 350
flyers: ¤ 80
Colour poster (for the festival only, A2 or A3) for each ecovillage 2 copies + 10 for conferences (60 copies) ¤ 50,-
postage ¤ 50
upgrade for the exhibition: ¤ 200
travel support for members (¤ 50% of the travel expenses the cheapest way) approx. ¤ 6.000
travel expenses for Council and staff: ¤ 2000
food and accommodation for Council and staff: ¤1.700

We will try to help participants from economically less privileged countries either through the Ecorates or using another system. We will find a solution that will allow Wolimierz to at least cover all costs.

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B) Financial strategy

Budget planning for 2001/2002/2003 was delegated to Lucilla and Agnieszka and will be developed after the Council meeting.

Fundraising
Agnieszka presented the application for the EU Commission for the environment and the PR material she prepared for the EU "Sustainable development" task Force.
The EU application contains budgets for the following activities:
- office organisation and salaries
- exhibition and slideshow
- website
- meetings (council and assembly)
- support for a multilingual newsletter
- GEN-Europe flyer
We apply for Euros 77.000. This will increase our budget by approximately 50%.
The other application was for youth exchange and it was sent to the European Commission for Culture and Education.
Other funding possibilities for GEN-Europe from the EU:
- The “Socrates” programme. There is a possibility to develop an educational programme between ecovillages working on education (Findhorn. Lebensgarten, Damanhur, Harman)
- “Culture 2000” (cultural exchange among ecovillages).
- Media productions (films, videos)

Manuela Vullo presented a summary of her report: from the first applications done, she received a first reply from Deutsche Bank. Apple and IBM are able to give money for NGO's working especially in Africa and Middle East. We discussed the ethical aspect of several potential funders and decided to abstain from fundraising at airlines and oil companies (British Petrol excluded for their commitment to develop an alternative energy policy, especially with solar).

Eliminated funders:
McDonalds
Coca Cola
Philip Morris
Johnson & Johnson
Shell and other oil companies

Agnieszka will work on developing a web database for all information collected about fundraising (through an internet database). There will also be a 2-page GEN-Europe presentation that can be used for foundations. A native English speaker from Damanhur (Orata) will proof read proposed documents.

Manuela will be sending the last updated / eliminated potential donors list to the Phoenix list. She needs more information about our programmes. At the moment we will focus on: Twin Villages, East Europe, Education, Living and Learning Centres.
The Middle East node should also be incorporated in our fundraising activity.

Sale of material

Lucilla reported on the sale of the directory.
Income generation will be a big item on the next council meeting. How do we convert GEN-E into an economically sustainable organisation?
Different possibilities were discussed: selling publications, EV trade, cultural events, EV Tours. Mete and Lepre offer their support to increase the fund-earning capacity of GEN-Europe through new programs and initiative than can be developed (sale of goods, courses etc). They will report to the Council for feedback and suggestions.

Budget planning July 2001/June 2002

In the future all our accounts and budgets shall be presented in ¤.

Yearly budget (all in ¤) 1st July 2001 to 30th June 2002, in general figures:

Assets: Liabilities:
GT fund 64.000 Overheads 13.000
L&L Centres 5.333 Wages 55.000
South dev. 5.333 Activities 13.000
Communication (GEN-Int.) 16.700 Travels 18.000
Network Support 22.000

Subtotal 91.366 Total 121.000
Buffer funds from previous year (approx.) 60.000
Earmarked for Needy Projects 1.220
Earmarked for Africa 1.580
Earmarked for EV travels 9.500
Funds for to ease the transition 2.500

Total 153.866


Liabilities
Activities (¤13.000)
directories: ¤ 5000
promo: ¤ 1000
translations: ¤ 2000
national newsletter: ¤ 5000

Travels (¤ 18.000)
Travel for members: ¤ 6.000
Lucilla: ¤ 3500
Council travel: ¤ 6500
Council food + board: ¤ 1000
Unplanned: ¤ 1000

Network support (¤ 22.000):
Middle East: ¤ 5000
Africa: ¤ 5000
Education: ¤ 5000
General support to networks ¤ 5000
L&LC material ¤ 2000

Considerations on our salary policy:
The new GEN-Europe / GEN International situation will have effects on our office staff and work tasks, placing higher responsibilities on Lucilla and requesting the incorporation of Agnieszka as permanent staff for FY 2001/2002. After long discussion, the Council decided to enforce a salary policy which respects the expanded workload, the different levels of responsibility and covers related costs (Agnieszka will be working from her home), while keeping the overall salary expenses (including taxes) within the allocated amount of ¤ 55.000.

Agnieszka will present her quarterly report of the cost of the Lebensgarten office on a separate spread sheet.

Office tasks (and subsequently costs) will be assigned as follows:
GEN-Europe office: Cristina and Agnieszka (co-ordinated by Lucilla)
GEN-International office: Lucilla
Ecovillage Travels and newsletter: Kasimir

General office tasks for Lucilla, Cristina and Agnieszka will be accounted under "Labour costs", while stipends strictly related to specific activities (website, fundraising, newsletter and ecovillage travels) will be accounted in the activities sections.

The detailed subcategories will be worked out by Lucilla and submitted to the Council for approval.

Proposal from Mete for the creation of a Middle East sub-regional node:
Mete suggests Berna Yilmaz works and under his co-ordination, between June 15th and September 30th for the starting phase of "GEN-Eurasia" office. She will be responsible for developing contacts and promoting GEN in 25 countries in the Balkans, Caucasus, Central Asia and Middle East. She will be working 40 hours per week in Mete's association (Harman Anatolian Society for Ecology), at the Ankara office. She will be paid ¤ 1500 for the 3,5 month period. According to the development of contacts in the region, Mete suggests she makes three separate visits to the Balkans, Caucasian and Middle East. She should write a report after the 3 months and also supply info for the website.
Funding request:
3 months @ ¤ 500 = ¤ 1500
500 overheads, and according to the needs
3.000 (¤ 1000 for each trip) for travelling to:
1. Balcans (Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria) Greece, Cyprus, Giorgia, Armeina, Aserbajdan
2. Caucasus
3. Middle East: Iran, Irak, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Egypt
Central Asia

The ¤ 5.000 grant would be allocated as "seed money" to help the office get started. GEN-Europe will actively participate in joint fundraising to establish and support the new node.
The Council approved Mete's request with four votes in favour (Mete abstained).

C) Activities and projects

Middle East and Africa

Mete reported about his trip to the south east of Turkey, which covered 3500 km total, from Ankara to the Iran / Iraq borders (Hakkari). Mete requested support from two national agencies supporting post-war actions. During the trip he met with a Kurdistan environmental NGO in Diyarbarkir. The situation is now quieter but it’s still too early to get anything going. There are lots of empty villages evacuated during the conflict, the people sent to the big cities (the capital grew from 400.000 to 2.000.000). The Countryside is empty, fields are abandoned, the overall situation is an ecological disaster. 50.000 Turkish soldiers are still stationing in northern Iraq with air patrol by NATO planes.
Network actions carried out:
Some messages sent to Egypt (Sekem), Greece (Tina and other NGO - European Perspective), not much more.
The Sekem village is a very good example because they mix east and west, they have a company, community and education aspects also. They are pretty well known in the region. Basaisa should also be contacted (once visited by Albert and Jan Bang)
The Balkans have a great potential for sustainable development after the wars. Also the great Atatürk dam has changed the setting of the region giving more water for agriculture. It covered the whole valley that was the cradle of humanity, submerging some important and unique historical sites.
There are some governmental projects starting now, huge development projects with the World Bank and UNDP. On the lower scale, working with local authorities and NGOs, we can find some room for our work. It is important to have good partnerships with other NGOs in the area. Mete suggests working on the potentials of the region and not having a top-down approach.
Structure: we have a choice between establishing a separate regional and keeping it together with GEN-Europe with a similar structure as the Americas with the ECOs. It is up to the networks to decide according to the necessities and opportunities. We will start testing the water in the Middle East now, and re-assess the situation in a year’s time. Agnieszka is in favour of a more independent structure for Africa and the Middle East to encourage their self-sufficiency and decreases dependency on Europe.

In the future, GEN-E can change its structure and may evolve in three or more regions (North, Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, Africa), which can be differently related to each other. We can propose to the Assembly to enlarge the Council to include representatives from Africa (Senegal at the moment) and Middle East. The Council will present a possible development at the general assembly and hear feedback from the members.
We also discussed the possibility of having only one Council meeting a year plus an assembly. This might mean a danger that the work of the council might become more symbolic.

Africa

Lucilla reports on the birth of the Senegal network and on the Twin Village action carried out by the Torri group in December.
The GEN-Europe Council would like to have a report on the tour of West Africa done by Elisa and Dembe. We have ¤ 5000 for South development, some of which could be used to bring African participants to the assembly. Programmes can be development matching their needs: e.g. education, permaculture, tourism.

Website

Agnieszka gave a summary about the meeting with Rolf in Copenhagen. The GEN staff and Board members – except Max from GEN-OA – are not satisfied about the Internet situation. E-mail problems, databases and the quality of the general service are questioned.
The Internet budget for will be the same for the next year and Gaia Villages will have the focus and the responsibility for this area.

The Council states our needs regarding the website:
- a mailing list
- a compatible data base accessible from the offices
- data base directly linked to our Website
- more diversity on the website (but still maintaining a similar style among the regions)
- more content, direct content providing by ecovillages and networks.
- trouble shooting within one day.
- more pictures
- more pages in different languages

We agree on the fact that all the national networks can have the access to the database to update it with their own password. Agnieszka will be the co-ordinator.
We’ll publish the reports from Ulysses, Marina and Sean Perrins about their experience at the Findhorn ecovillage training course.
Agnieszka suggests that we give more local character to the pages of GEN Europe, like display our own header and have the most necessary links to the rest of the gaia website (e.g. databases and other regions).

Attendance to Network Meetings and other events:

ICSA
Lucilla is writing a paper on the topic she will present: "Ecovillages: Intentional Communities of the Future”. She will send the text to the Council for remarks and feedback. We have requested an information desk at the ICSA.

ICM (International Community Meeting):
We discuss why other networks are necessary about the perspective of seeing other networks starting in Europe (like the network ZEGG is proposing) and we come to the conclusion that we will not oppose this possibility, which we see as a stimulus for further co-operation and growth for the movement. Agnieszka and Lepre explain the history of ICM. There is a feeling among some ecovillages that GEN is not completely in the hands of ecovillages.

Attendance to Network Meetings and other events:
16.-17.06 EVNUK, England (Kasimir attends)
16.-17.06 French meeting near Versaille
26.-28.06 ICSA, Germany
29.06 Ecovillage initiative gathering in Vienna, Austria (Lucilla to attend)
first week July: ICM, Germany
8.-15.07 Come together Network, Germany
16.-19.07 GEN-Europe, Poland
23- ?.07 WAS, Poland
25.-29.07 RIVE, Italy (3.-19.08 Festambiente with RIVE participation)
1.st week Oct. EKILAT, Turkey

GEN Board meeting
From November 24 to 31, Crystal Waters, Queensland, Australia.

Eco-city 5 conference
It will probably be held in February in Midrand, South Africa. Lucilla is in contact with Annie Sugrue of the organisation committee and plan to attend. and give a GEN presentation. She would also like to visit Kuthumba and Tlholego. This might possibly be funded by Gaia Villages.
Philip attended Eco-city 4 in Curutiba, Brazil.

Habitat +5
Gen attendance is still undefined, we will send a recommendation it to the Board.

Rio +10
No plans at the moment

World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, January 2002
ENA representatives might attend, Lucilla will keep in contact with them and inform the Council.

Youth Exchange

Agnieszka has submitted the second EU application for youth exchanges among ecovillages. The results will be known in July.
She suggests that the Youth programme should be an on-going activity of GEN-Europe (since the response has been so good). If the application were not accepted this year, she will improve it and send it again in autumn 2001.
She will also try to go to Brussels personally, should there be a possibility for personal contact.
We agree we want to have an open youth chat line on the website.

Publications

Request from Silke to help her selling the English Eurotopia.
The GEN-E office did a lot of work to help them contact several ecovillages who were not on the Eurotopia list. Lucilla also wrote to Professors Bill Metcalf and Ted Trainer who wrote articles for the book about ecovillages.
The Eurotopia team could make a flyer to promote the book and GEN-Europe can include it in the next mailing.

Sale of our Directory:
We will repeat the special offer for all members: ¤ 5 if one buys more than 20 copies
Sale of 1 copy: ¤ 10,-
At the festival, we could sale it for even less to circulate the information in Eastern Europe. We can also contact Green Books.

Italian Directory
Cristina is translating and compiling part of the information for the 130 pages directory. GEN-E is lending ¤ 1000 to this project, and the secretariat will sell the book (there is a big demand), which should be printed in June. The money will come out of the unspent funds earmarked for publications (the ¤ 3000 that Eurotopia didn’t use).

French version of the EV Living magazine
We could choose some articles and combine them with articles published by the francophone networks. It could be ready for the Planet'ERE 2 (education relative environment) conference organised by the CFEE (see below) at the UNESCO on November 21/23 in Paris. Jean Michel will propose a budget for a publication similar to “Vivre in Ecovillage” in quality and style. The magazine will probably not be a money maker, but we need some material in French, especially now that the Senegal network is starting and further developments are expected in West Africa.

Newsletter
GEN-Europe would like to express appreciation for the global newsletter realised by Hildur and Karen and would like it continue in the future.
In case the global newsletter stops its publications, the GEN-Europe Council decided to go on with the multilingual edition of the newsletter. The English version would be posted on the website.

Slides
We will assembly a slideshow with 50 slides, and each council member will have a copy.
The slides have been selected as follows: 5 Findhorn, 4 Lebensgarten, 5 Damanhur, 4 Torri, 5 Elfi, 3 Lakabe, 5 Denmark, 4 Crystal Waters, 4 The farm, 2/3 Council meetings, 2/3 Board meetings.

Education

It’s an important topic for GEN.
This year we decided to invest on the Findhorn ecovillage Training Course and support for the permaculture course for the Spanish network with a grant of ¤ 1000.
The proposal for supporting the “facilitation and consensus decision making course” lead by Beatrice Briggs has been accepted. Agnieszka will make the flyers for this course. They will be distributed among ecovillages and at the major events this summer.

Jean Michel presents the Francophone network CFEE (Collective Francophone sur et l’education et l’environement) started in Quebec and presently groups 49 countries around environmental issues. Murielle attended the last meeting on behalf of the French Ecovillage network. A larger meeting will be held near Paris (Planet'Ere 2) in November 2001; Jean Michel says there should be a GEN-Europe representative at this meeting and is investigating in how we can develop a relation with them. We could organise a GEN panel on education with representatives from the French network, Senegal, Canada. We need a document explaining the educational strategy of GEN–Europe (teaching through direct experience).
Jean Michel will contact Marti Mueller and offer her to be part of the panel. She could include the Auroville experience in the CFEE.
Jean Michel will co-ordinate the production of the French magazine with a choice of articles from EV Living; he will work with Marti, Lucilla and Agnieszka.

Living and Learning Centres

Lucilla presents an update on the three South partners of the program: Tanamalwila, IPEC and EcoYoff. Philip Snyder will be in charge of developing the program and fundraising for them.
Possible other places en Europe: Findhorn, CAT, Lebensgarten, Damanhur, Torri, Artosilla and possibly a place in Poland and Russia and Harman, Turkey.

Harman in Turkey received a grant of USD 55.000 for education starting from 1 January 2001 from a UNDP fund. Harman is collecting information about traditional cultivation methods in Anatolia. This summer they organise 5 one-week work-camps. Programmes for high schools and a Istanbul foundation are prepared. Harman is compiling all this information and create modules of sustainable ways of living.
The work done over the last 4 years (course with Max, Jan Bang and the straw-bale house) has given good fruit.
One of the student who attended the straw-bale house course held in Hasandede last summer built his own house in the earthquake area. Harman is ready to join the education programme.
Mete has been very successful in fundraising in Turkey (UNDP twice, World Bank, EU). An application to WWF was turned down recently. We might prepare a joint project between GEN-E and Harman.

Ecovillage Travels

Lucilla presented the Business Plan for the Eco-Village Travel Program. She estimates that the program will start bringing profit in year 2003. We discussed on how we can develop the program towards a more profitable and safe condition. In the future (2003) when GEN-E might move from Torri, this ecovillage travel organisation might stay in the village, in order not to lose the information on the subject and ensure continuity for both Torri and the program.

Marketing possibilities: Lebensgarten money workshop, Summer events, US: Nature Spirit, California (Sergio Lub and Agnieszka´s contacts).
Announcements have already been placed in many magazines: AAM Terranuova, Communities Magazine Resurgence, World Watch,
The financial projections in the business plan say the project will lose ¤ 5.000 in the second year. Proposed solutions include expanding to countries outside Europe, organising guided tours, promoting the initiative to encourage other ecovillages and related projects to join.

Next meeting
The next Council meeting will be held at the beginning of year 2002.

Minutes taken by Agnieszka Komoch, Lepre Viola, Mete Hacaloglu and edited by Agnieszka Komoch and Lucilla Borio.