This is from the first unMonastery Newsletter sent out late last night - sharing here for greater visibility!
** Dear Friends, Family and fellow unMonasterians,
After an often hectic past year building the groundwork for the unMonastery project in Matera, we are inordinately happy to say ‘Ciao’ on the first ever unMonastery newsletter. ( In the meantime many of you have keenly followed us on Twitter and the EdgeRyders’ platform for at least fleeting glances of our work. )
** unMonastery Matera – il Prototipo
The first ever ever prototype of the unMonastery tradition landed in the City of Matera in Southern Italy, earlier last month. It was a suitably tough start, but things are definitively underway. Today we can even invite you to visit us virtually on the newly launched unMonastery beautifully bilingual website:
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As a top priority the website is heavily focused on communicating with the citizenry of Matera but has many new features, including Projects, People, News, Events and perhaps most helpfully an FAQ, which we hope will go some way to explaining exactly what it is that we are doing here.
In the coming weeks we will launch a global version of the site, which will give an overview of the conceptual framework that we are developing and how the unMonastery idea might be successfully applied to other localities.
** Our Inaugural Opening Ceremony
If you happen to find yourself in Southern Italy in the next week perhaps consider a pilgrimage to our Opening Ceremony in Matera on Saturday the 15th of March. After just six weeks in the field we are opening our doors for a series of workshops, presentations from unMonaserians and local projects of Matera, we’ll also host the first Open Street Mapping session in the morning and other initiatives we will be embarking on during our time as inhabitants of our inspiring walls.
We hope that this day will present the first of many opportunities to develop our core project, which is focused on activating an open dialogue with the communities present here.
** Final Days of CheFare
Earlier in the year, we were surprised to find ourselves in the running for the CheFare award, which offers €100,000 to grassroots, P2P projects such as ours. The frustrating element is that it involves a voting system, despite this we used our time and energy to start work on a Sustainability Plan, to counter the request of a Business Plan, you can read more on the website.
In order to implement that plan and ensure the longevity of the unMonastery in Matera, we need votes. It would be deeply appreciated if you can take the time to vote for us on the CheFare website - and share the link online. Voting ends Thursday. If you can bluff Italian via google translate : one may bump us up the sweepstakes – to what we imagine is at least a years additional funding from: vote here (http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&sl=auto&tl=destination_language&u=http://www.che-fare.com/progetti-approvati/unmonastery/)
** Support our work
If you’d like to materially support the unMonastery in it’s work please head over to our Wishlist page (http://matera.unmonastery.org/en/pages/wishlist) and share what you can. We still lack soup spoons.
** Visiting Experts
If you have something to share and would like to visit the prototype in Matera, please see our pilgrimage page (http://matera.unmonastery.org/en/pages/visiting) and fill out the form at the bottom of the page.
There are a mere 65 to 120 steps down from the daily city where townspeople take their evening passiarato to visit the World’s First unMonastery
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