Present: Natalia, Ana, Alex, Nadia, Noemi. This is a conversation summary and a wiki, so edit as you please.
Nadia’s slides - Added a slide around the process/proceedure.
Noemi: Confirm how the PopUp village connects with the reef?
Nadia: The Reef - Difficult political situation. Formal politics not leading to a better future or present
If we want to change it’s not about political programs or manifestos. Change comes from the edge and seeps into the centre. If the edge and centre disconnect how do you create the conditions for change? These communities we are discovering need to be articulating demands which are somehow legible to politicians.
- You need to look towards satisfying material needs of those who are seeking these changes. People lose steam, no business model for this work (the equivalent of unMonastery)
- Many initiative reinvent the wheel, not learning from each other, and make unnecessary mistakes because collaboration between these initaitives are too time consuming
- The demands don’t gel together to create new constituentinces to drive political change (bring new people into politics ad remove the old)
Communities try to fix their own worlds, based on what works for them. In order to solve the above, you need to have:
- unMonasteries or equivalent in communities for long enough to foster true collaboration and trust between community and innovators - especially in damaged communities
- Incentivise projects and people to work through ER ways (documentation and online communication), understand that the world is big and they have allies.
- Teaching people to use the collective intelligence methods to understand, articulate insights and make very concrete demands
Health and social care is the number one destroyer or communities ability to be self sufficient. Care is such a point of vulnerability: the biggest challenge is getting time for a doctor/GP to see you. But it’s also the fastest way to develop trust in a community to provide health services. Time and person to person contact.
How do we get there?
- Go out a meet groups that are already doing these things. Build relationships with them. We have to go see and share the truth and realities with others.
- Build local alliances with local funders and community leaders (informal)
Build allies. Build a reef with a already attached community
Noemi: Do we have to structure for how collaboration can pan out, how long it takes? Not everywhere we go and ideas sparkle we can make things happen. It takes time and a certain skillset to seize these opportunities. - Is Galway an example of developing in a hands off way?
Nadia: Yes, We have to have plan the growth and take time on the ground with communities. We have to be concrete and clear in our planning. People looking for guidance and a path. Desperate times. A plan will help bring people towards us.
What is the Village?
Meeting space for community groups. A place to teach documentation.
Find spaces that can create permanent UnMon buildings.
Short term - a festival, 3 week event where 1st week people are building their houses; demo spaces where people can walk in + living spaces; barnraising to build shared infrastructure: big building in the middle with kitchen, showers and all… You need a building master. Find land build tiny houses (1600E) for sleeping and running mini demos of initiatives.
- The Edgeryders Caravanserai/ Travelling Circus.
Concept translated by Alex: The POPUP VILLAGE as a caravan where one can pitch in with small mobile spaces which come together and wagon up into a communal space.
In the middle you build a shared space with communal parts. This builds communal shared interest in the space and creates a permanent base for operations in that space for the future. Barnraising both as metaphor and literally.
Alex: Highly mobile, low cost traveling is a great way of seeding ideas, but as we go further into new places we will make visible deeper problems, more contextualized. There is no holistic way of building a series of unMonasteries, each will need to grow organically out of the place.
Nadia: the concept of INCHOME: permanently affordable selfsufficient homes; it doesnt need to be for everyone, it needs to be for the driving forces of these initiatives, as the coordination costs nobody wants to shoulder; you need people that are ok with themselves to be ok with others.
We need a plan: "There's going to be a permanent space" / with function, dates, timeline, deliverables.
Do we reach out to cities for this?
Natalia: it’s about finding what’s already there and highlighting it.
Long term leases from cities. Needs space from the city. Must have permanence built in from the start. We need local allies in the place.
Possible places: Portugal and lagging regions; UK but not for longterm;
The lagging places aren’t those which dont really have active communities. There can be just motivation!
Ana: Armenian ICA in Yerevan; lots of abandoned land and cheap houses in rural areas.
Actionables:
COMM PACKAGE + CALL FOR SPONSORS
1st newsletter of Jan outlines the PLAN
- attachment Comm Pack and Sponsorship Pack (Do you want to finance this house?) Finance home by home; Let’s build two more; Do shareholding.
Note about crowdfunding for mini houses - If you contribute money towards the houses you get your name or face on a tile 
