ASSESS

There were a number of key factors to this workshop that required careful and sustained assessment to ensure the maximum benefit to both the Students participating in the course Ourselves the facilitators and the project hosting the course.

Om, Matt and I had been discussing the possibility of running a workshop together for several months. 
Having lived together at the panya project eco-village and permaculture education project in northern Thailand for several months during 2011 we knew each others strengths and weaknesses very well and had developed very close friendships. We were all excited about taking this relationship one step further and developing it into a powerful and dynamic trio co-facilitating workshops and courses together.

Having identified the desire to co-facilitate a workshop together the next thing was to arrange  where the course would take place. This was a relatively easy choice for a number of reasons: We were looking for a venue that could display and embody a living example of applied permaculture design, community / ecovillage living, good educational environment and facilities, competent and reliable support personnel and close proximity to a natural advanced ecosystem, preferably a forest (essential for the deep ecology aspect). These are the choices of venues available:
                                                 
                                                      SWOC analysis: (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, Constraints)

Pun Pun

Strengths: 
  • Close proximity to natural forest ecosystem
  • Inspirational and charismatic project owner
  • Well established community
  • Good knowledge of local surroundings

Weaknesses:
  • No permaculture design
  • limited knowledge of site and systems

Opportunities:
  • Experiencing community living in well established community
  • Interaction with owner (Pi Jo) and residents
  • Experiencing / exploring beautiful surroundings
  • Purchasing Organic produce from on site shop

Constraints:
  • Mainly Thai speaking community
  • Never taught here before and don't know systems and support staff well.
  • Difficult to see active examples of permaculture in practice

Wongsanit Ashram

Strengths:
  • Very well established project.
  • Very well known to Om
  • Established ecovillage / community
  • Good educational facilities 
  • Inspirational and charismatic project owner

Weaknesses
  • Far from a natural ecosystem
  • No permaculture design
  • Many Mosquitoes 
  • Pollution due to proximity to Bangkok and main road

Opportunities:
  • Networking with larger ecovillage community
  • Experiencing community living in well established community
  • Possible meeting with Sulak Sivaraksha (owner) important Thai socio-political figure

Constraints:
  • Difficult to see active examples of permaculture in practice
  • Never taught here before and don't know systems and support staff well.
  • Mainly Thai speaking community
  • Hard to do deep ecology section effectively in this environment

The Panya Project

Strengths:
  • Established permaculture project
  • Established ecovillage
  • Examples of conscious permaculture design
  • All three of us have intimate knowledge of systems, residents and local area
  • Close proximity to natural forest ecosystem
  • Good educational environment
  • Have taught courses here in the past

Weaknesses:
  • Transitory community
  • Facilities 

Opportunities:
  • Experience community living
  • Behold examples of applied permaculture design
  • Experiencing / exploring beautiful surroundings
  • Visit Pun Pun and talk to Pi Jo
  • Interaction with residents who are studying permaculture

Constraints:
  • Only one active toilet between vollunteers & course participants
  • Harder to show good examples of community  living because community is so transient

Rak Tamachat

Strengths:
  • Examples of conscious permaculture design
  • Examples of community living
  • Good knowledge of systems, residents and surroundings

Weaknesses:
  • Very new project
  • Transitory community
  • Ongoing construction work (noise pollution)
  • Poor educational environment

Opportunities:
  • Experience a new community environment
  • Interaction with residents who are studying permaculture
  • Behold examples of applied permaculture design

Constraints:
  • Deep ecology section more difficult to encapsulate in this setting
  • Community very transient and not well established
  • Ongoing construction work means:

  1. Noise pollution during class
  2. Inconvenient cooking facilities
  3. Classroom environment less conducive for deep learning

Next we contemplated when the course could realistically happen

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Om Matt and I all have busy schedules with different commitments in far flung regions so coordinating a time that was suitable for all of us took a bit of work. There was also the consideration of fitting it into the schedule of the project that we chose as the host venue.

In this case we chose The Panya project as we saw it as the place that best fulfilled our goals holistically. Panya is an education centre and host quite a lot of courses so we had to communicate with the team there to find a time that worked well for them and for us.

Finally we came up with the date (17th - 31st October 2012).

So the next task was to consider: what are the key elements that we wanted to focus on during this workshop?

We knew that we wanted to cover an introduction to permaculture; giving participants a good grounding in the ethics and principles of permaculture and introducing permaculture as a design tool.

We also knew that we wanted to cover aspects of community living. Introducing them to life in community, how to build trust and harmonizing interactions in a community context.

Given Om's considerable experience facilitating ecovillage design education (EDE) courses in Thailand and Matt, Marta and I's interest in the subject we also wanted ecovillage education to be a large focus of the course.

Finally we all had a strong desire to incorporate more of a spiritual / philosophical aspect to the workshop. Attempting to transcend paradigms and get folks thinking on a deeper level. Trying to put permaculture and human relationships with nature into their proper context on a level more elevated than the mundane. Om has a lot of experience at facilitating deep ecology sessions during EDE courses and after learning more about the subject and reading a couple of Joanna Macy books I felt an instant and deep connection and attraction to the subject, Matt was also very excited about it.

We felt that all these elements were intertwined and interconnected and could be combined very well together to create a powerful course.

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