We trialled a different format today and for those that came along we’d love to hear your feedback.
What did we do differently?
Well for one we held the Narara Eco Village open day on a Sunday instead of the usual Saturday. We brought the start time forward to 11am and ran the project presentation first. I think this last point was the key, because when we divided up into groups and took the tour I could tell the visitors had far more context to the project, the lay of the land and could ask very targeted questions.
On our normal open days we stagger the tours before the project talk. This works well as the first group to go get’s the longest to walk around but it has the downside of stragglers potentially missing out which isn’t great. Today, after the talk, we had about 5 village members leading the tours with about 10 – 15 people in each tour. We each chose a direction to head off from but we all covered the main parts of the amazing land!
Another great change (in my opinion) was after the tours everyone, visitors and members, got together for a shared meal in the members lounge. I met some great people and had a chance to chat over lunch. What I find amazing is the very broad groups of people that are interested in the village – some younger families, older folk that know lots about other ecovillages around the world, people looking for a tree change and sometimes just people from the local community interested in what’s happening.
After lunch we settled down to hear from this months speaker for the Network – Stephane Verhaeghe. A doctor in neurology who has built an amazing model to help manage (treat?) dementia using the Montessori principles. Simple changes made to their care that focus’s on the the patient’s strengths and passions that is resulting in a massive decline in the use of sedatives while increasing quality of life, self esteem and happiness from patients, their families and caregivers!
And that’s another day! If you came along I’d love to hear what you thought? Did it work? Anything that could be improved?
Hope to see you at the next open day on the 29th November.
– Lincoln