Ecocom Newsletter 4 - 23 May 2005

The Newsletter team is putting out a request for articles, points of interest, requests etc, have your say, share your knowledge.

If you are interested in making a contribution, or have any queries about the structure or content please visit http://www.ecocom.org/newsletter.htm and read the Newsletter Structure, Content and Submission Guidelines, then send any newsletter contributions to newsletter@ecocom.org.

Events and workshops

Want to become more involved? Lend a helping hand? Here is your chance.

We need volunteers to help set up the yellow shed (sweep the floors, set up chairs etc) before events / workshops. All that is needed is for you to arrive about half hour before the workshop is due to begin and help set it up for the day.

If you are interested in helping out then please contact the co-ordinator Sarah Robertson on 9572 3172 or email sarah.robertson@ozemail.com.au

SomerVille calendar of events

Please Note that where possible, workshops and meetings will coincide with the SomerVille viewing days on the first Sunday of each month, which are now called SomerVille Sundays.

Note: Chidlow Markets occur on the last Saturday of every month, the next two being on the 28^th May and 25^th June.

Enterprising Enterprise!

For many of us, the reason we have been attracted to SomerVille is for a better all round quality of life. For this to take place it will be essential to integrate all aspects of our lives – work, play, leisure, social and whatever else takes our fancy. In order for this to happen it will be necessary that how we earn money and what we spend our time doing fully supports this overall objective. The evolving enterprise process is a fundamental cornerstone to ensure we achieve this objective.

On Saturday 14th May another Enterprise Session was held at SomerVille to share information relating to the Enterprise Survey as well as begin to map the continuing path. It was well attended with a great energy, vibrancy and sense of excitement. With the next level of approval obtained people are now moving into “let’s get real” phase with all of the many things to consider for creating a life at SomerVille .

Part of the day was presenting and discussing findings relating to the 35 enterprise surveys which have now been completed. You can find the survey results online in our member’s only section at:

It is great to see the level of passion, interest and commitment to making enterprise succeed at SomerVille . It is clear that our strength and the very core of why SomerVille is what it is today is the truly diverse, talented and amazing group of people who have decided to make SomerVille their reality.

There was much discussion around the ideas of community involvement in enterprise and what that would mean both for the community and individuals developing businesses. It became clear that those interested in kicking off a business could drive this process by putting together a proposal which would then be used as a prototype for how enterprises at SomerVille might work.

We also talked a little about why enterprise at SomerVille will be different to enterprise anywhere else. It is best summed up by the table below:

Normal Small Enterprise	The SomerVille Way
Require skills in all 3 core areas	Just do what you are passionate and good at
Start up unable to access support	Start up will have affordable support accessible
Isolated and have to deal with all issues.	Collaborative, cooperative and supportive process
Planning and evolution in isolation	Planning and evolution as part of overall strategy
Unable to access any economies of the collective	Have lower costs due to SomerVille Approach
Unable to provide a rounded experience	Ability to provide to visitors a full experience
Access to finance through institutions/self	Access to community funds for support
Difficult to access other business skills	Opportunity to leverage off each other’s strengths
Separate part of life - earning an income	Integrated aspect of day to day life
Money spent in business goes where?	Money spent supports other local businesses/community
Premises cost normally prohibitive	Affordable Premises available in Village Centre
Lack of funds - decisions based on affordability	Make decisions based on what is best
All the risk	Shared risk

So enterprises at SomerVille have begun the next process towards reality. The next phase is for potential businesses to go through the Feasibility process to confirm that some of the great business ideas will be viable at SomerVille . Also we will be looking at completing the Economic and Enterprise Strategic Plan so we can use this as a key guiding document for our approach ahead.

A Core Enterprise group is being created to drive this process forward. It is envisaged that this group is made up of a key group of individuals with complementary relevant skills that see creating enterprise both at SomerVille and possibly elsewhere, as a part of their future. If you are interested in being part of this core enterprise group please contact Paul Antonelli directly to talk more about it.

The next Enterprise Session will take place on Saturday 11^th June 2005 where community members will present findings from their feasibility which will launch us into a detailed synergy-mapping process.

This venture started because the olives were getting ripe in our 13 tree strong olive grove. I myself started with no knowledge about olive harvesting except for the fact that I like olive oil and wanted to be harvesting from our land.

The first time we gathered in the grove it was on a miserable afternoon on 30th April. Paul Antonelli had given us instructions to get the olives down gently by shaking the trees with long poles or dragging them off the branches with long handled rakes. But when the soft approach did not yield much result we commenced to get the olives down by whacking at the branches. However we found out later this led to lots of bruised olives although lots of fun. So the next harvest we did by hand.

On that first day we had 9 people (Robert, Adelheid, Sui, Sarah, Neil, Hannah and Lachie, Paul A. and myself.) We got the olives to rain down on tarps we had spread onto the ground. Down they came with leaves and little bits of branches.

Then we used the amazing ‘guitar’ that Neil Robertson had made (from recycled timber and screws) He had only seen this contraption for about 2 minutes in a fairly non descriptive photo of Italian olive harvesters. It is a beautiful thing in itself - plays no music but when we tumbled the olives down its race we were able to collect olives without the leaves or branches. Music enough.

Those olives were then washed and soaked in briny water overnight. Paul and Robin have been changing their salty water daily for ten days. Now they are resting (with the bruised ones picked out) in a container where they receive new salty water once a week for some weeks. The next step is to bottle them.

Robert was active in the kitchen as usual and had prepared afternoon tea. We harvested about 30 kilos that first time.

We gathered olives a second time on Mother’s Day. Bad timing one would have thought, however it was a beautiful sunny day and we spent it with lots of mothers. We had chocolate and champagne for all. Christophe, Vida and Dominic, Paul M. and Mechtilde, Thomas and Elska, Lachie and Hannah, Neil and Sarah, Vincent, Adelheid, Chris and Angela and Ishika, Brett made an appearance but was busy making wine, Paul A. and Robin A. and Di who was on fruit fly patrol in the citrus orchard and myself. Quite a tribe of us. Mention was made by all of us at some time in the day about how ‘real’ the experience of picking is. One can share a conversation in amongst the branches or go off by oneself for some solitude.

Dominic would have to get the Occupational Safety Officer’s award for being on the edge of survival by placing a ladder on Paul Moes’s 4 wheel drive and picking from there. (I think he likes olives a lot. Either that or there are not many ‘extreme sport’ opportunities in the building game).

An estimate has been made that we picked 50 kilos that day. These olives have been spread out amongst 3 families to do the salty water changing. Today is the last day (whew) and we are onto weekly changes.

We are also investigating the cost of using a local press to create oil from the small quantities that we are likely to get each year. Some of us have indicated that we would prefer oil to olives. However it takes 16kg to produce 1 litre of oil. The olives need to be black too. Getting them all to ripen to black at the same time when we have such a diverse range of types will be interesting.

Many recipes have been suggested to us. I would like to collect them into a file so that we could make some choices next year. Please send any you have to wormgirl39@hotmail.com. Paul and Mechtild are salting them in a way suggested by Vida and Dominic.

I was amazed by the response to our email sent to the Greenedge database. People from Queensland emailed to apologise for not turning up but wishing us luck and offering advice. We have also had an offer of free compost for feeding and mulching the olive grove.

According to a Nine National News story from Monday 9th May 2005, Australians waste 3.3 million tonnes of food annually. Not only is the food wasted, but also the water used to produce it and the fuel used to transport it. As the article says, it's "criminal". CSA schemes help reduce waste because consumers harvest only what they need, the food is fresher, and is transported and stored less.

One of the planned outcomes for the, "2005 - Year of Action" is a CSA Scheme at SomerVille .

A survey was launched on March 18^th to ascertain the viability of a CSA scheme at the SomerVille Ecovillage™ . Over a three week period, 65 responses were received with approximately one third of these from the wider community and it became clear that people wanted a CSA scheme.

The aim is to have drop off points in two locations down the hill to make it easy for as many people as possible to become part of the scheme regardless of where they live. CSA members will have a financial incentive to contribute with some hours of work.

A group of passionate potential farmers (or at least consumers!) got together on Saturday 7th May to further the SomerVille Ecovillage™ Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Scheme. People shared their expectations and experience of CSAs, the survey results were presented and research findings from elsewhere in Australia and overseas was considered. Carmel Bainbridge came along and inspired us with stories of running her own CSA scheme at Mimsbrook Farm near Armadale, about 30km south east of Perth. After lunch, an area of land between Walnut Cottage and the future village centre were identified as the best area to start the scheme (see photo above).