"An intentional community is a planned residential community designed to have a much higher degree of teamwork than other communities. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, or spiritual vision and are often part of the alternative society. They typically also share responsibilities and resources. Intentional communities include cohousing communities, ecovillages, communes, survivalist retreats, kibbutzim, ashrams and some housing cooperatives. Typically, new members of an intentional community are selected by the community's existing membership, rather than by real-estate agents or land owners (if the land is not owned collectively by the community)."(wikipedia)

In May last year I attended the Housing Forum by the Noosa Residence and Rate Payers Association. It was a great mix of speakers with very insightful presentations. Representing our Biosphere social board my presentation was about creating an alternative living model for the Biosphere - an overview over intentional communities. I had invited Chris and Karyn from Bellbunya  to the the forum and they had kindly accepted. They shared some of their insights. It was wonderful to support the talk  with  stories by people actually doing it. One of my favourite insights was: "You are on kitchen duty once a week and you get a beautifully cooked meal the other 6 nights of the week on a budget of $40."

The folks at Bellbunya are hosting this exciting talk today:

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Presentation on Intentional communities in the UK, USA and Scandinavia

Presented by Dr Helen Jarvis, UK
 
Where: Bellbunya, 114 Browns Road, Belli Park
When: 7.30pm, Friday 7th January
Contact: 5447 0181
Cost: Gold coin donation for coffee and tea, No RSVP necessary. Just turn up.

Join us for an intimate evening with Dr Helen Jarvis. This is a fantastic opportunity to hear how it's being done overseas and to mine the wealth of knowledge that Helen has accumulated.
Helen is a Senior Lecturer in Social Geography at Newcastle University in the UK. She is currently in Australia conducting international comparative research into various forms of intentional communities and the innovations these may allow for alternative family/household/livelihood arrangements. Helen will share some of the findings of her community research in the UK, USA and Scandinavia (including a period living as researcher in residence in Christiania, Denmark).

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My main interest is in the 'Nuts and Bolts' of intentional communities: architecture, business set-up and group dynamics of intentional communities. How do we build a good business framework for an intentional community? What does a good and assuring exit strategy look like? How can resources, creativity and joy, connecting with people and collaborating with people be harnessed without the negative side effects many of us have experiences in various shared living arrangements?

I'm very much looking forward to Helen's talk tonight.

Greetings

Bettina