Welcome to the Lammas Autumn Newsletter. 

Ecovillage quote for the season: “Live your life with joy, where possible” Leander

Ecovillage News

Hub

Lammas is taking on £10,000 in loans in order to complete key works on the  Community Hub enabling it to pass Building Regulations. Works include plumbing, door furniture and glazing, increased disabled access and compost toilets.

Re-casting the floor in the Hub

Leat

The Ecovillage’s principle power supply is a 27kW hydro electric turbine. This is supplied with water that is channelled through approximately 1500 meters of leat – a channel approximately 2m wide by 1m deep which takes water from the Gafel river - an engineering feat in its own right. The leat sprung a leak recently and the water started to damage our neighbours (Trecnwc) field. Thus we undertook a series of improvement works which included a huge amount of exploratory work (digging by hand) relining approximately 60meters of  leat (lots of wheelbarrows and concrete) and various repair works (crouching in damp holes with painting sealant onto various joins).

Residents 

Meanwhile Tir y Gafel residents have taken advantage of the good summer weather and pressed on with infrastructure works. Andy and Jane have erected a new polytunnel, Katy and Leander have completed their foundations and begun timber framing (see pic below). Ayres is currently laying a limecrete floor in his roundhouse, and Hoppi and Tao have begun to build the foundations for their house.

Katy and Leanders timber frame assembly

In addition Charlie and Meg are still caught in planning wrangles over their beautiful home – they are about to appeal to the Welsh Government over Pembrokeshire County Councils refusal. Two other local plots have submitted OPD planning applications with an application for an OPD down the road (Hermon) nearing completion.

One Planet Council News

OPC Autumn Gathering

The One Planet Council held their autumn gathering at John Hargraves low-impact holding in Pembrokeshire (Green Apple Cross). The day was well attended and buzzing with light optimism for the future. For more detail on the day go to http://www.oneplanetcouncil.org.uk/autumn-gathering-2014/

The One Planet Council is now focusing on coordinating 2 training days at Lammas. Both training days will be delivered by a range of experts including the principle author of the OPD Planning Guidance, James Shorten. The first day is designed for planners:

http://www.oneplanetcouncil.org.uk/training-course-08052015/

and the second day is designed for OPD applicants:

http://www.oneplanetcouncil.org.uk/training-course-09052015/ 

The One Planet Council also offer a range of support literature about OPD

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Amanda Jackson Exhibition

A big congratulations goes to photographer Amanda Jackson for her exhibition at the Theatre Mwldan in Cardigan:

To Build A Home: A Study of the people of Lammas Tir Y Gafel Eco Village and the surrounding community is the work of photographer Amanda Jackson. Known for her portraiture and her photographic studies of sustainability, in this series Amanda continues to examine people who choose to walk a different path. Themes running through the series are the freedom of childhood, how people relate to and rely on the land, and what aspect technology plays in their lives. Sometimes contradictory, often humorous, these photographs taken using medium format film evoke a timelessness while capturing a growing modern movement.

http://www.amandajaxn.co.uk/

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Media

Simon and Jasmine are currently filming their house build with Grand Designs.

Living in the future have just released another episode on Lammas:

http://livinginthefuture.org/episodes/55-lammas-ecovillage-five-years-on.php

Tao Wimbush is putting together a kickstarter campaign to make a short film about the low-impact movement in Wales. More details to follow.

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Up and Coming Courses at Lammas: