Eco-Living and Learning Weekend Retreat

April 23-25 2010

What you will learn on this Course:

Class-room Based events:

• Overview of Sustainable Building Methods
• Simple Living / High Thinking

Field Work

• Grow organic vegetables
• Field Trip to Ani and Fiona's Eco-house

Eco and organic are terms that are now (finally) fashionable. People have noticed that over-exploitation of resources fueled by greed tends to make more of a mess for everyone in the long run. So what to do?

Well we suggest that you take a weekend crash course with some experts. Fiona Gracey and family moved out to the forests of Fermanagh and built themselves a thick-walled straw bale house in 2006. They were off the electricity grid, and they stayed that way. Heating by cosy wood-fires. They dug their own well for water, and grew vegetables and trees. Fiona's husband Andrew (aka Ani) converted a washing machine to run by bicycle power. And so on...

They've featured in newspapers and television such is the interest in their story. They've found out a funny thing: People so like the idea of their lifestyle choice that they give them gifts of fire-wood and building materials. Remember the scene from the beginning of the Lord of the Rings movie: the village atmosphere, the cute hobbit houses, families and friends out having a good time by the bon-fire. We all like this idyllic lifestyle atmosphere. However modern society tends to be fundamentally routed in exploiting people (somewhere in the word) and places to the max. And we're all completely caught up in it. This retreat will demonstrate the alternative. It is unlikely that people will sell their existing house, buy a field, and get cracking into the eco-stuff (unless you're exceptionally determined!). Still, it will give inspiration and information so participants can improve their lifestyle choices into the future.  

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