Title: Finding Community – Ecovillages and Intentional Communities – Speaker — Diana Leafe Christian
Location: Mitchell Hall at St. George’s Church, 99 Woolwich Street, Guelph
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Description: Speaker on “Intentional Communities” Coming to Guelph
Diana Leafe Christian, perhaps the foremost expert in North America on “ecovillages” and “intentional communities,” will be speaking in Guelph on October 18th.
Ms Christian has lived for many years in an ecovillage in North Carolina, and has authored two books on developing communities. She consults to those intending to start down the arduous path of developing a multi-residential community to share their lives, along with their lawnmowers and laundry machines.
Her talk is being sponsored by the Guelph Sustainable Intentional Living Community (SILC), a group of about 15 local residents planning their own community in Guelph. SILC was launched in December, 2011. The group has spent the past 10 months setting goals and trying to understand why 90% of intentional communities fail, either before they get off the ground or after.
According to David McAuley, a local architect and founding member of SILC, “Intentional communities usually fail because people don’t know what they are getting into — an unclear vision, inadequate communication, financial limitations, lack of cooperation, municipal approvals, and dozens of other issues. Diana’s presentation will be an opportunity to see how these challenges are met and overcome by successful communities.”
Mr. McAuley says intentional communities, as difficult as they are to develop, are the way of the future. They fit with the need for more “walkable communities,” and they meet the Ontario provincial mandate for urban “intensification” under the Places To Grow legislation. “They also solve a lot of modern problems having to do with isolation, especially among older people,” he says. “Loneliness is epidemic in our society.”
Doors open at 6:45 p.m. Admission is $10 at the door (unwaged $5). For more information, please contact: Dennis Gaumond [email protected] or Murray Arnott [email protected].
Start Time: 7:30pm (doors open at 6:45pm)
Date: 2012-10-18
End Time: 9:30pm