DECEMBER 21, 2011

Greetings Global EcoVillage Community!

Happy Solstice and holiday season to everyone! The season has been full of activity as we prepare for the beginning of 2012 and we wanted to send all of you our heartfelt blessings and gratitude for being a part of this epic journey with our team! We will be sending out our regular broadcast with new member welcomes and updates early next week after Christmas.

May your fires burn warm and bright!

Cheers!

NOVEMBER 19, 2011

Greetings Global EcoVillage Community!

A friend of ours who lived in a small eco-community in Arizona once told us, "The food we grow, prepare, and share will always determine the quality of our community'....at the time we translated this as a collective 'you are what you eat' statement but as the years passed we realized his words had so much more meaning. Coming together around food is the basic building block of family/tribe/community and these days when more and more people are becoming aware how important it is to eat local/organic food the banquet we gather around has become a 'home-grown' preparing/sharing.

Our diets and our health are linked together and more people are exploring Raw Food cuisine. Our community has been blessed with a new member, Chris Kendall, who has started a "Raw and Living Food' group:

"A place to come together to share and discuss the benefits of a raw food diet in terms of health, sustainability, ecology, biodiversity and anything else we wish to talk on. I flow as a RHN and Raw Food Lifestyle coach, sharing experience, support, knowledge and of course delicious recipes is my Passion :)

One week since the launch and members from all over the world are joining the community daily! Please help us to give warm welcomes to all new members. You can 'Friend' each other by visiting members profile pages and clicking the 'Add as Friend' link below the member's profile photo.

NEW MEMBERS THIS WEEK

Theodore Poulis from Brooklyn, New York
Nicholas Malkentzos from Staten Island, New York
Alexander McNAB from Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
Echo, Hsi-ju, Huang from PingZen, Taoyuan, Taiwan
Jonathan from Beetzendorf OT Poppau, Germany
Katherine Chen from Taipei, Taiwan
Ha Wa ii Na Na from Tai Nan, Taiwan
Greg Sedbrook from Inverness, Florida
Wong Kian sin from pj,selangor, Malaysia
Denis Dal Molin from Ferney-Voltaire, France
Wendy Wu from Nei Hu, Taipei, Taiwan
Kobina Arkaah from Accra, Ghana
Ine Tseng from Hualian City, Taiwan
Emily Cin from Taipei, Taiwan
Chen Tai Hung from Taipei, Taiwan
Eddy Modde from Oostburg, Netherlands
Panantropolis from Alentejo, Portugal
Peilun Li from Taipei, Taiwan
Apolonia Paulusse from Ojai, California
Julie Bourbonnais from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Tereza Bučková from Prague, Czech Republic
Kenneth Gardner from San Antonio, Texas
Douglas Raglin from Nevada City, California
Richard Hardaway from London, United Kingdom

L.O.V.E. Productions NEW WEBSITE!

Producers of 'A New We' have launched their new website as part of the 'A New We 2012' initiative and Global EcoVillage & Sustainable Community Network celebration!

"We are a group of friends who care about the current state of the earth, its future, and all beings living thereon, including our own species- humans. We can see how we relate to each other and the environment, and we see the need for a shift in our collective consciousness (starting with the individual) more than ever before." Click here to check out the new beautiful website!

Screening of 'A New We' in NYC!

Exploring Sustainable Communities in Europe

Blog Post from Jonathan
Workshop Invitation: Inspiring Change - Best Practices for Green Education Creating Holistic Learning Experiences and Teaching Sustainable Lifestyle

"A holistic training experience for all staff in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the living and learning place 'Ecovillage of Sieben Linden' We are excited to offer a EU wide workshop for professionals in the field of sustainability where real life examples, hands on training, action learning and networking with likeminded people are woven into in a participatory and holistic course design." CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

We mailed our first batch of appreciation gifts (DVD's, CD's, & Books) this week to members who have participated in the launch through introducing themselves, posting discussions/blog articles, starting groups, inviting friends, etc. Click here to read more about all the ways you can participate in the launch celebration!

NOVEMBER 13, 2011

Greetings Global EcoVillage Community!

Just 3 days now into the official launch celebration and so many amazing people have joined and contributed to this exciting new community! Let's all welcome the newest members:

John Skinner from Los Angeles

Samantha Wu from Taipei, Taiwan

Daniel Greenburg from Amherst, Massachusetts (Founder of Living Routes - Study Abroad in EcoVillages)

Ralph Jaggi from Colfax, California

Alex Cicelsky from Kibbutz Lotan, Israel

Genggeng Ye from Beijing, China

Aseem Kawatra from London, UK

Chris Kendall from Saskatoon, Canada

A special thank you to Abram, Kev, and De for introducing yourselves! We encourage all of you to introduce yourselves in the forum - the first 10 people receive 'A New We' digital downloads in appreciation for sharing.

"My Ideal EcoVillage" by Stefan Wolf

Envisioning 'My Ideal EcoVillage' is the first step to creating it. Stefan Wolf, producer of 'A New We' shares with us his own vision and we invite you to post your own 'ideal'...or if you already are living your dream please share with everyone stories of your blessed situation! This is a very good way for everyone in the community to begin to get to know each other and who knows, maybe find compatible visions! As a part of our launch celebration we are gifting wonderful books to the first 5 bloggers! (click here for more info) Posting a blog is easy - just click here and then click the '+Add' button in the upper right corner of the table.

FREEGANISM?

Ever hear of Freeganism? Maybe you are a devout practitioner? Check out this blog post by member Abram Trosky....

Re-DIV-stribution: Transforming freeganism from individuals surviving to communities thriving

"Grad students are thrifty out of necessity, poaching street furniture and scouring campus message boards for events with free pizza. In the past several years I have embraced this lifestyle as a holistic life philosophy, expanding on my age group’s environmental/anti-consumerist orthodoxy"....READ MORE HERE

FAQ LINK CHANGE

We realized we set up the FAQ as a discussion and it should have been a category so individual questions could be posted and easily looked up. Here is the new link to the category (we posted the link on all your 'welcome comments')

We received an important question this weekend and posted a response:

"Hi Stefan & others. I'm a bit confused about this new initiative: 'The Global EcoVillage & Sustainable Community Network’. Sounds more or less the same as the Global Ecovillage Network of the Federation for Intentional Communites. Why this new network? And: what is the added value and/or difference of with the other already existing networks? Looking forward to some clarification. Kind regards"

Please read response HERE

The launch celebration goes through the month of November and then in December we will gearing up to the beginning of the 2012 year and setting our collective goals and agendas to co-create a sustainable future!

Cheers!

NOVEMBER 11, 2011

Greetings Global EcoVillage Community!

Today's Launch Celebration has so far brought in wonderful international folks who are committed to the evolution of the EcoVillage model and forwarding our collective sustainable living agenda!

Laurie Walters from The Hamlet of Monkton Wyld (UK) started a group for the Monkton Wyld Court which is an amazing education centre for sustainable living.

Let's all welcome the newest members so far today!

Christina Schmidt from Lyon, France

Karen Parlette from Eureka, California

De Wms from Gualala, California

Cihuatl Huilotl Tlahuili from Mexico

Teresa Lees from Cambria, California

Wesley from Santa Barbara California

Abram Trosky from Brightton Massachusetts

David Gaillard from Lyon, France

Kev Sibbald from Christchurch, New Zealand

Colleen Whalen from Sacramento, California

Alex Marieka Hanly from London, UK

Ernesto Sun from Styria, Austria

Mohan Mahtani from London, UK

Please (if you have not already) read the Official 11.11.11. Launch Celebration Blog Post - we have lots of appreciation gifts for new members participation and contributions! This launch celebration extends for 11 days to November 22nd so invite your friends/family!

We are working on the video tutorial to help new members orientate and navigate this network which we hope to have done soon...it is hard to focus on the task when it is so fun being logged in and meeting new members! We also have a FAQ page where you can post any questions and we will answer them...

Cheers!

NOVEMBER 3, 2011

Important Announcement to All Members of the Sphere

Greetings EcoVillage & Community Sphere Members

We are excited to announce after many months of planning that we are re-launching this network in partnership with the 'A New We' team next week on 11.11.11!

About A New We - Ecological Communities & EcoVillages in Europe: The Austrian documentary filmmaker Stefan Wolf traveled through Europe in order to explore and document well established eco-communities that portray some of the broad spectrum of lifestyle possibilities that are part of our global effort to transition to a sustainable world. Experience EcoVillages and ecological communities in Europe in this two hour long documentary portrait.

Click here to watch the trailer

The variety of situations and voices in A New We inspires hope for the future of humanity and all life on the planet. The lives shown here are more motivated by imagination, vision, respect and cooperation than by economic forces and social expectations. In these 10 communities, the creative solutions to many social, environmental and economic challenges exemplify the nearly infinite capacity for human-, community- and self-development.It’s a film that enlightens, encourages and spreads hope – for a new world and A New We!

So what does this mean?

It means that this community network will have new administrators and will feature articles by the producer of A New We, Stefan Wolf, and the 10 European communities that were featured in 'A New We', as well as hundreds of other communities will be able to start groups on this network AND the platform is going to be developed as an 'open to the public' educational and resource hub for all things related to the evolution and development of the EcoVillage & Sustainable community models globally. New members will still go through the 'approval' process (to keep spammers out) but the network will no longer be under the private 'invitation only' policy that it was under previously.

We have been revising and editing content on the network as well as changing the whole look of the platform. We encourage you to update your profile pages and get ready to meet some new friends as 'A New We' emerges just in time for 2012 - The Year of the EcoVillage & Sustainable Communities!

We look forward to catching up with all of you and thank you dearly for your support and friendship during this time of the 'Great Transition' to a healthy and sustainable world!

In Sustainable Solidarity

Daniel & Darlene Cavallaro

"Dandarius'

Owners SeThInk Media

Founders of the Interdependent Project