?Permaculture Design Certification Course?

Christopher,

Here’s a thought (just brainstorming here). I wonder if it would be possible to partner with Rust to Green/Utica to offer a PDC in Utica next spring or summer? R2G is a service learning project for Cornell U. students to get real world experience in sustainable urban development. They’re currently working in Utica and Binghamton.

From the Rust to Green website: “R2G Utica will be engaged in identifying and advancing strategies and projects particularly related to greater urban livability, sustainability and resilience. R2G Utica aims to widen local participation, involvement and inclusion in shaping and guiding Utica’s transition from rust to green.” Here’s a recent local report: http://www.wktv.com/news/local/Utica-hopes-Community-Foundation-grant-will-help-towards-goal-of-a-green-city-111873504.html

R2G partners with the local colleges so perhaps one of them could host the PDC. Hamilton College has a large arboretum, faculty involved with Slow Food, and has a R2G student fellowship. I teach at MVCC in Utica so could inquire there as well. Part of the program includes rehabbing various sites, so perhaps one of them could provide real-world experience for a group of PDC students (some from the R2G program and the rest from the area) to do some designing?

I could contact the R2G people here if you think you’d be interested in something like this.

-Kathy

From: upstatenypermaculture@googlegroups.com [mailto:upstatenypermaculture@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Christopher Healy
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 5:28 PM
To: upstatenypermaculture@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: ?Permaculture Design Certification Course?

Kathleen: My sister lives in the Utica suburbs. I would consider teaching a course there. I could go there for the module weekends rather than all the students travelling to me. That’s sort of a quote from Mollison. I need a place to teach and enough students to make it worth while. Perhaps you know of a location? I can stay at my sisters. Right now I have a course beginning at the end of February in Glens Falls.

CR Healy The course listing is at: gulftangofox

On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 10:51 AM, Kathleen Partridge <kathy> wrote:

If I might chime in here…

I’m located right outside Utica and have also been waiting (lurking) and
hoping for a PDC to be offered closer to home – approximately 50 mile
radius, which for me would include the Syracuse area. I would like to see
PDC’s become more widely available and in a format that accommodates us
middle-aged folks with jobs and responsibilities. Right now, everything I
see involves hours of traveling (big carbon foot-print) and some sort of
two-week communal camping adventure geared for 20-somethings. I realize the
camping aspect helps get these nature-deficit kids back in touch with
nature’s cycles, fosters community, etc. – plus they have no money – but
some of us old fogies actually are not so deprived, having been raised
before the age of electronic amusements that killed whole generations’
awareness of the natural world.

Of note is the fact I now see lots of Priuses on the road and they’re all
driven by middle-aged folks. So there are more than a few of us boomers that
are aware of our collective social and environmental predicaments, but so
far we seem not to be the "target market" of permaculture, at least in the
US. I get the feeling it’s different overseas, however.

Anyway, this is not meant as a criticism of any of the PDC’s mentioned, just
an expression of my personal frustration at not being able to find a PDC
offering that will work for me. If anyone hears of anything here in the more
immediate Syracuse-Utica area, please post and let us all know.

Thanks.

-Kathy