[Strawbale] New proposal for European Strawbale gathering 2009

[Max Vittrup Jensen]

Dear all,

This mail relates to a mail I mailed to several 'loose' email addresses 
a few days ago. The short text was the following, the attachment can be 
requested from me.
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Dear all Euro Strawbalers...

Attached you'll find a proposal which may be a bit controversial? It's
simply a slightly late offer to host the ESBG 09.

The offer is supported by the 2 Czech strawbale interest organisations:
Ekodum and Zelene Staveni (Ales Brotanek and Michal Navratil), as well
as our organisation; PermaLot. In addition Tom Rijven recommends it, as
he believe it would support the development of Strawbale building in the
East: This is also why we're asking to host it already in 2009.

We are aware that there are no Euro authority within the SB circles, and
thereby no-one who can be the formal judge. We hope you will write your
opinion and we'll all be able to judge on consensus. The added benefit of
doing it online is naturally that also those of you who could not afford
the journey to the ESBG07 can have your say: Please everyone, forward
this to all SB circles in Europe.

Bale and Love,
Max   www.permalot.org
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Second volume:

I'd be specially interested in hearing about your view of the intervals
(every second year as now? Less? More?), and especially to hear from
those of you who were not in Germany: What kept you away? Distance?
Participant fee? or simply lack of time...?

Below I've posted the feed-back I've received so far. I hope that from
now on it will all be more public available through hitting 'reply to'
this email, [perhaps you first need to sign in etc?]
My personal comment is that I especially agree with Sissy, Eva and
Norak. I worry about having ESBG every year, especially when it overlaps
with the International gathering. I find the Belgian idea of the site
interesting, however I fear that keeping it in Belgium will limit
participation for some, and/or require unsustainable fundraising...

Bales and Love,
Max
PS: Norak: To your concern: I'll post an aerial view soon: there's no
more than 500 meters between accommodation and our site. We'd have tent
accommodation and large social/tents tents at the field by our site and
educational center. The center has 2 rooms for gatherings of up to 15-20
people, along with office. There should be a small round SB house build
next to the field as well by 2009 (15 people). Kitchen is on site. If we
need the large indoor conference center it's 2 km away, however perhaps
we could use Standa's accommodation instead. Between Standa and us are
the village commons, where we should arrange for a party, perhaps SB
game at the soccer field...

PS: Please respect the request of 2 of the email recipients to be
removed from this group email: All in all: only use the elist from now
on....

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dear max,

great proposal. austria - at least as i am concerned  :-)   - will
support you.

yours, thomas
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> Were you the Scot at the ESBG07?...or an unknown angel? ...and how do 
you like the proposal?
No, I'm a New Zealander living in Denmark. So I was at ISBBC2006.

I haven't looked at the Belgian proposal, but I usually support holding
such things in poorer areas who can benifit most from the visit and
visability of such a meeting. So I like it. I would try and come, I'd
love to see Czech Republic.

Duncan
dlithgow , gmail.com
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please, delete us from this list.
Elisabeth
stengaarden , os.dk
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Dear Max,
I am not against and of course we would help to prepare the event with
you. (It seems that maybe ArTUR ngo will become more active in straw
bale and clay, so you will have a bigger partner in Slovakia, then so
far, I will know more at the end of week)
Yes, I also think that it would help the development in East.
(Morover, maybe we could get some of our straw bale friends to visit us
too maybe after event, as it is not that far anymore.)

Zuzana
zkierulfova , gmail.com
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Dear Max,

thanks for your offer to host the next ESBG. I like the idea.
For me it depends on the Belgian people, if they really like to host it,
they have the priority as we agreed about doing it there. If they think
it's fine to do it in Czech Republic, who should mind to do it there?

I'd love to have a chat with you when you are in Sieben Linden. Please
let me know when you are here.
Eva

P.S.: Next time, please send smaller mails! Not everybody has a
DSL-connection, my computer was paralized for a long time with loading
your document.
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Hello Max

it seems that you feel the straw-ESBG-fever too!

What can we say? In these last two weeks, we were very busy with
brainstorming and organizing and programming. We almost have the OK
-word of a nice location here in Limburg: it is not a bio-eco-commune
like in Sieben Linden or in your place, but it is an open air museum
with many old houses made of straw and clay: the domein Bokrijk. We
could make a beautiful link between past and future and the role of
natural materials.

One of the advantages of Bokrijk: from the structure of Bokrijk (it is
in hands of our province Limburg) we could get lots of supports for
fundraising and making promotion for our european straw-vision.

Maybe the international straw-scene is ready for an annual congress, so
every year. Would you agree with ESBG 2009 in Belgium (give us some time
to organize it) and then in 2010 in Szech, and then in 2011 in ?

Dear Max, we don't feel like playing a who-will-win-this game.  We are
still interested to do it, but we will listen to all the reactions.

In the next days, I will explain to everybody of our email-list, where
we are standing in the organisation of the ESBG 2009. So they will be
informed about both the proposals.

A bale and love from our side to you

Groetjes
Geert

PS: Nice that you put those videofragments on Youtube. What a promotion
for the French dip!!!

here is the site of Bokrijk:
http://www.limburg.be/bokrijk/eng/index.html

geert.goffin , telenet.be
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Hiya Geert,

I'm just in and out, czeching the mails...   I basically agree with the
comment from Eva, and like you I don't believe in 'winning' games;
cooperative games are best.  I'll get back in a few days with a real
answer once we get more reactions: I'd recommend that you mail everyone
and tell about the place, so they have something to compare with?

Peace and Love,
Max

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Hi Max,

thanks for your picturefull presentation. I like the idea of meeting in
Czech Republik.

I think its important to find a good solution together with the belgium
host volunteers.

Best wishes

Fredi

www.stroh-unlimited.de
mail , stroh-unlimited.de

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Dear Max, dear all...

thanks Max for your interest and for contactiong the people in your
country.
Please contact especially Giggi, Hein and Peter from Belgium, who where
ready to organize a ESBG in their country, where it was not sure yet, if
it would happen in 2008 or in 2009. There was the idea to meet in
Belgium in advance with at least one representative of each interested
country to prepare this in common.

Sissy
from Germany

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wanted to write message to all but my dear yahoo is refusing to send it
to all adresses at once, could u please max send it from yours so when
people hit "reply all", everybody in the circle sees the following
conversation? otherwise it might get really confusing
thanx a lot
norak
ps: sissy is there any email list of conference people yet that would
make this kind of thing easier?

Hey,
just a quick thought on next gathering...
- my understanding when i was leaving 7linden was that belgian guys are
considering hosting the gathering. Also during the conference i heard a
reflection of some sort from the direction of baltic states (if im not
mistaken Edita spoke it to the circle at some moment) that they might
consider hosting the next gathering too...
- i think it would be really good to hear from all what their thinking
on this subject is, especially from folks who were at one time or the
other considering hosting the gathering. What are your options? What are
the main issues that would need to be dealt with if the gathering was to
be hosted at yours place? What would be the facilities? We heard from
czech, it would be great to hear also from belgians and see if there is
anybody else int he circle still considering this. And then of course if
we really want to decide by consensus and not just by "virtue" of silent
majority it would be great to hear from every single of us - what do we
think?
- so my position on czech:
i quite like the idea exactly because of the reasons Max mentioned, more
people from so called east able to come more easily, potential positive
impact on the situation in czech and slovakia.
- my doubt: arent the facilities too spread out? especially the main
gathering space - where would it be?
- my position on belgium: i really dont have much of a opinion yet as we
havent had much specific info, but i know it would be expensive again
for people like me to come, what always puts one in a difficult
position. This time i volunteered and i was gratefull for the
opportunity but in the same time i felt unequal to the people from the
west who could afford the gathering easily and didnt have to compromise
their participation (and of course there is many ways how to deal with
this situation even if next gathering happens again in a "rich" country,
and i would love to be part of that conversation:)   - my position on
baltic states: id love it but i have no idea if the guys were at all
serious? please?
- last but not least: one more big thanx for the folks who organised the
last gathering. it was a delightful event and i think we need more!
love to all
norak
from turkey and slovakia and czech
seed4peace , yahoo.com

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Please delete us from this list!
Lene Kjaer, livsbanken , paradis.dk

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