From the 22nd until the 25th of November a lovely group from all the partner communities met in the Ecovillage Sieben Linden – finally again after having a break for 18 month due to the Covid pandemic.
Some changes happened during the break: New volunteer coordinators in the partner communities, a new ESC program being launched and Ängsbacka ending their ESC program for now.
It took some time for the group to re-cap and rebuild the relationship, looking at the different topics we wanted to discuss. A long round of introduction was made to get to know each other. Mel and Aaron joined as the new volunteer coordinator for the Cloughjordan Community Farm and divide into the document on the exchange of practices that already Su and Conor (the former coordinators) started. In addition, they introduced their own new methods.
Also at Ängsbacka were some changes and we were introduced to Jeyda (former ESC volunteer, now volunteer coordinator) and Peter (work leader). Furthermore Dada from Ananda Gaorii brought Nitya (former ESC volunteer, now volunteer coordinator) along. It was a nice exchange about everything that happend during the pandemic and how it affected the volunteering programs. It was also great to have time for long discussion of how each other experiences can support us in ongoing processes.
The participants really enjoyed the autumn/ winter food and the richness of it even though it had cabbage in many different varieties. They were also happy about the interest and questions from the hosting community when they gave their presentations one evening.
As the project got the longest possible extension until June 2022 we rescheduled the meetings for Ananda Gaorii and Cloughjordan multiple times before. But now it seems that we will be able to go as the Covid restrictions are slowly subsiding. At least the pandemic had also a positive side as we were able to try out the practices a bit longer and evaluate them more deeply.