Office : Premises and Equipment: Nothing new to mention under this aspect. Same office, same computers as the trimester before. We are now buying a new IMac for Kasimir but the details will be given with the next report.
Summer is meeting time and this year was no exception. We attended the RIVE meeting (Italian Network) in Alcatraz (July 1/2/3), the RFEV (French Network) at the end of August, and organized the General Assembly of GEN-Europe Members in Spain (August 3/7).
For the General Assembly you can refer ro our website and browse the following files:
Minutes of the General Assembly (with beautiful photo gallery):
Travel
Not much travel apart from the above mentioned meetings.
Staff
Cristina and I worked very well all through the summer with virtually no holiday break until the end of September when I took 8 days off with Massimo for a short and much needed vacation. Antonello Marasco, still part of our team, followed up on registration of the new articles, accounts and budgets for the Assembly and for the office.
Internet report
Our "gen-europe" accounts registered the following traffic:
Lucilla (lucilla@gen-europe.org): 514 in, plus 130 on Council list and 265 on Elders list; 512 out.
Gen (info@gen-europe.org): 865 in, 215 out.
Minor traffic was registered on the other mailing lists: rive@lists.gaia.org, ekilat@lists.gaia.org,cometogether@lists.gaia.org,ecosolidale@egroups.com, collaborative, EV Forum, website. My guess is that the total traffic should not exceed 250 message all together.
Newsletter
We started collecting the material for the next edition, and sent it in to Karen by November 5th. Kasimir is now in charge of distributing the texts to the national correspondents for translation and publication.
Advertising
David Kanaley´s documentary "The Future of Paradise - The European Ecovillage Experience" (featuring Torri, Damanhur, Findhorn, Herta, and a few other communities) was produced and probably aired in Australia during the summer. David very graciously sent us a copy, and all interested people can browse their website at www.lightsource.com.au
Promotion/publicity
The slide-show was used at the General assembly with good results, and the Council members are asking for copies to use in official events.
Conferences
Mete Hacaloglu attended the International Ecology fair of Istanbul, on the 26th of October. This fair is related to the Middle East and Balkans specially, report will be sent with the next trimester. He says: "People from the Israeli Kibbutz movement will attend, Tina Agiorgiti from Greek Network also will give a workshop and other people from different countries. But most important it will be a real promotion of Ecological ways of Living in Turkey. A part of our stand will be a GEN stand, as I have brought some materials from Spain. Materials from Ekotopia will be there. The Turkish version of GEN flyer will be displayed and we hope to receive more promotional material like EV Milleniums, videos, English flyers and directories."
Video
Agnieszka sent us 6 copies of the Habitat Revolution video for sale, and we still have the 10 copies of the new version of the Crystal Waters video.
Visitors/interns
Summertime makes the visit easy... I can´t possibly write a list with all the visitors we had, it would be terribly tedious for you to read. On the other hand, most people came here not only to visit the GEN office but to enjoy a day or two in Torri as well, as a sustainable bonus. The most closely related to GEN were Sara Franchi from Milan who is writing her final Ph.D. thesis on Ecovillages; Lorence Kasting from Belgium who was touring communities in Europe to get inspiration and start her own; Sara Rooth and Anya Öst from Sweden who are setting up a website on the Globalgarden.net site and for that received a EU grant; Attila Filetoth and Andrea Solymos from Gyürüfü on the way back from Spain; Sarah West and Christoph Hensch from Findhorn; Teodora Anastasoaei and Sebastian Capotescu from Romania, as part of their ecovillage training sponsored by GEN-Europe; two representative of the Finnish Keuuru Ecovillage; Bas Raufs from Holland, a very nice and original character engaged in tree conservation and diffusion of the Robinia species across Europe.
Ecovillage Directory
At the General Assembly of Members we agreed to give support to national editions of the German Eurotopia published by the Sieben Linden folks. The Spanish, French and Italian networks are interested and will apply for a limited grant. The English version of Eurotopia is due out for the end of the year and, thanks to our intercession, will feature articles by Bill Metcalf and Ted Trainer as a contribution for the ecovillage movement.
Education
Most ecovillages run summer courses on topics related to sustainable and communal living, but unfortunately they do not normally report back about the results of their initiative. I will here describe the two projects I followed personally:
*The Permaculture Design Course in Torri Superiore, the first in Italy, was held by Richard Wade and Ines Sancez of Permacultura Montsant, a study centre located near Arbolí in Catalunya (Spain). 24 participants followed the whole seminar for 15 very intense days. Quite a few came from the Italian Ecovillage network, like Gracchio from Damanhur, Fiorenza Bertolotti, Jancice Browning and Piera Oppinel from Valle del Sole, and Massimo Candela, Antonella Rauseo and Daniel von Düffel from Torri. At the end of the course, a group of 12 students decided to start an Italian Permaculture Academy and will meet again at the end of November near Venice. They will study for 2 years with Richard´s constant tutoring. Stefano Soldati, the meeting host and an enthusiastic permaculturalist, is the manager of one of the largest and better organized organic farms in the region, and is actively planning to convert it into an ecovillage. Plans for other permaculture seminars are well on their way in Tuscany, Lombardia and of course Liguria, where Torri will run the second full course in August 2001.
Ecovillage training for two young Romanians, Teodora Anastasoaei and Sebastain Capotescu, from the Tinerii Prieteni ai Naturii, who received a GEN-Europe grant to attend the Assembly and travel to different European ecovillages to attain practical training, and be inspired to start the first ecological community in Romania. They visited Lakabe, Torri, Bagnaia, Sieben Linden, Lebensgarten.
Legal status and fund-raising
A) The final version of the new articles of the GEN-Europe Association, as emended and approved by the General assembly, was edited and sent in for registration at the end of September. So far no objection was raised by the Legal Office, and we should receive our stamped copies in a few days. GEN-Europe fully complies with the Italian Regulation concerning non-profit organizations. If the "European Convention on the Recognition of the Legal Personality of International Non-Governmental Organizations" approved by the EU Parliament in 1996 is Strasbourg is adopted by the Italian Government (as expected) our articles will have international recognition.
B) Agnieszka has been engaged in preparing the necessary documents for grant submission at the EU and we are now waiting for the grant call which is due in the last quarter of the current year. The Fundraising Committee meeting is planned right after the GEN-Europe Council meeting on November 21/22 and will include also Manuela Vullo, a former volunteer who graduated with honors on fundraising for non-profit organisations.
Conor McGovern of the SCI (Irish Network) asked us to participate in the LIFE-Environment program as partners of the Irish Tescom organisation (Template for Sustainable Communities). He describes this project as follows: "TESCOM aims to facilitate development of communities that have a reduced ecological footprint and encourage integration of environmental considerations into new community development. TESCOM will address the difficulties encountered by ecologically sustainable communities - a new and growing type of settlement, whereby the occupants reduce their ecological footprint by adopting only sustainable means of development. TESCOM will develop a unique template for development of settlements of this type in Europe, offering innovative solutions to recurring problems. Innovative aspects of the template will be implemented through demonstration projects. Much of the work will be non-country specific e.g. business, finance and community organisation and will be developed using best practice and innovation from across the Community. Some aspects will be country-specific e.g. planning and legal and will need input from GEN members in each Community State. The Irish Network members will implement the demonstration projects. Thus, project partnership will be at local, national and Community level." GEN´s role will be to "to facilitate transfer of knowledge to and from the project and to act as a reference point by which the project could find examples for best practice in sustainable communities in Europe".
GEN´s influence on Torri life
The GEN-Europe service node is presently experiencing an extremely positive moment. With two people working full-time (Lucilla and Cristina) one part-time (Kasimir), Agnieszka as a webmaster and fundraising coordinator and Antonello as a tax supervisor and guardian angel, we are very well set. Our ecovillage-level salaries allow us to live comfortably and still leave a lot of money for projects and initiatives. Torri will become more and more a gateway to the ecovillage world, as we proceed with restoration and officially open up to sustainable tourism.
We are deeply grateful to the Gaia Trust and to GEN in general for giving our little ecovillage this chance to make a quantum leap and offer our services to the movement.
Meetings:
GEN-tle Power meeting, Damanhur, November 8/11
GEN-Europe Council meeting, Torri Superiore, November 17/20
Fundraising Committee, Torri, November 21/22
Network Meetings:
Turkish Network Ekilat, October 7/8, Southern Turkey
Spanish Network (RIE- Red Ibérica de Ecoaldeas), Madrid, November 8/10
Special project:
Twin Villages program: Torri superiore in Guinea, West Africa, December 25/January 8 2001
Respectfully submitted,
Lucilla borio
GEN-Europe Secretary
November 15, 2000.
GEN-Europe, Via Torri Superiore 5, 18039 Ventimiglia (Im), Italy,
tel: +39 0184 215 504, fax: +39 0184 215 914, e-mail: info@gen-europe.org