Internet-connection and phone lines are warming up, as our small organising collective together with fellow organizers from around Europe are getting increasingly busy with the preparations for the next International Straw Bale Building Conference ? ISBBC 2004.

We are starting to receive many emails from interested people from all over the world, so it seems that now is the time to update you on the information we have this far.

It is our intention to keep you updated via monthly emails.

Feel free to forward to your friends and colleagues.

If you do not wish to be on this mailing list, then please let us know.

Best ISBBC wishes

Jo, Lars & Thomas.

~~~

ISBBC 04 - Friland, Denmark

Education ? The Next Generation

Aim of ISBBC 04

The ISBBC 2004 in Friland, Denmark, is for people who are in any way involved (or want to be involved) in strawbale construction & natural building. It is an opportunity to renew connections and to create new networks, to exchange information and to celebrate !

The conference will feature a variety of workshops going beyond strawbale building.

Via facilitated forums on issues such as ?education in building?, ?women and building?, and ?The socio-economic impacts of lowcost living? we hope to bring in fresh energy and new ideas to the strawbale world.

The spirit of the whole ISBBC is to encourage, educate and inspire the present and - particularly ? the next generation of builders.

Details

More Information

It is via www.thelaststraw.org that you can keep yourself updated regarding the ISBBC. The homepage is up by now, but is still under construction. We will let you know when it is fully functional.

Contact

isbbc@thelaststraw...

Registration Fee

The registration fee ranges between 350 & 500 Euro, depending on your choice of accommodation. The registration fee covers:

Accommodation sunday 13^th to friday 18^th inclusive

Meals from breakfast monday 14^th to lunch saturday 19^th inclusive

Transport between Kalø Skolerne and Friland

Morning workshops, afternoon forums, evenings, the mid-week party, the ?Job Centre?, the conference book & the post-conference cd-ROM.

The fee is still subject to changes.

Registration Form

Registration can only be done via www.thelaststraw.org (not yet though).

We aim at having the form up and runnning by March 15^th.

Conference locations:

Friland This is the workshop location during the conference. Friland is an intentional community in the village of Feldballe ("field bale") approximately 35km northeast of Århus. Friland is a showcase of different strawbale building techniques and the use of clay plasters, mussel shells, and a variety of renewable energy techniques. For more info visit www.dr.dk/friland/index_english.htm (English)

Kalø Skolerne This is where accommodation, most meals, afternoon forums as well as the evening programme will take place. Kalø Skolerne are a fusion of two schools: an organic farming school and a language folkhighschool. It is located one km away from Rønde, overlooking the beautiful Kalø Bay and the Kalø Castle ruins, and is 7 km from Friland. For more info visit www.kalo.dk (English)

Families & Children

If enough people with young children are coming, we will do all we can to create a space for them, a workshop, and facilitate a way that parents can share childcare responsibilities.

Pre-conference opportunities at Friland
Come early to the ISBBC and help prepare workshops, set up the conference infrastructure etc ! Guaranteed swimming and cakes at the lake.

For more details please email us, limited spaces !!!

The ISBBC 2004 is being organised by members of:

Straw Bale Builders World Wide UnLtd

the European Strawbale Building Network

the Danish Clay & Straw Building Network

and Friland

~~~

The CONFERENCE

International Straw Bale Building Conference 2004, Friland, Denmark

Education ? the next generation

June 13 ? 19

The overall aim of the conference is to strengthen the community, to promote natural building, and to facilitate a new generation of builders.

Morning workshops
Aim to cover different aspects of building an energy-efficient, comfortable and beautiful straw-bale building.

Between breakfast and lunch, located at Friland.

The workshops will be designed according to the experience level of the participants, with the possibility of more than one workshop on a given topic.

Workshop list (as of February 19^th)

Pre-fab walls (confirmed)
SB wall raising (confirmed)
Compressed Earth Bricks ? wall building (confirmed)

Lime plastering ? (yet to be confirmed)
The Danish heavy duty clay sprayers (confirmed ? and no ? it is not a band)
Hand plastering & finishes (confirmed)

Seaweed roofing ? (confirmed)
Shingles ? (yet to be confirmed)
Thatching ? (confirmed)

Mass oven building ? (confirmed)
Solar heaters ? self-builder workshop (confirmed)

Food storage ? building of an all winter food storage (yet to be confirmed)
Permaculture design as an aid in house design (confirmed)

Children only workshop ? (confirmed)

Afternoon forums
Aim to develop, strengthen and guide the current direction of the strawbale world.

Between lunch and dinner, located at Kalø Skolerne.

Each forum will have an appointed facilitator and a rapporteur.

The facilitator will have personal topic-experience, and will guide and inspire.

The rapporteur will write a summary to be included in the post-conference cdROM.

By having several forums it is our intention to break down the amount of participants in each forum to such a small number that the forums will be participatory instead of one-way-talks.

Forum list (as of February 19^th)

Being an apprentice strawbale builder ? (confirmed)

Networks ? how to start them and how to keep them going - (yet to be confirmed)

The socio-economic impacts of lowcost living ? (confirmed)

TLS ? where it´s going and where it could go ? (confirmed)

Women and building ? (confirmed)

Evenings

After dinner at Kalø Skolerne

Sunday 13^th

Opening reception (light refreshments, but there is no dinner on sunday 13^th)

Monday 14^th

Opening key-note speak - the grand overview of education within Natural Building ? (not yet confirmed)

Tuesday 15^th

"free roaming evening 1"

There is no common agenda for this evening. We are offering the following:

- Introduction of the Job Centre - this is where you book in on different building projects for the Summer of Building

- To help initiate new national networks experienced facilitators will be ready to pass on experience
- ?

Wednesday 16^th

The party evening

Thursday 17^th

"free roaming evening 2"

There is no common agenda for this evening. We are offering the following:

- the Job Centre is open

- network building can continue
- ?

Friday 18^th

Closing key-note speak - the future ? (confirmed)

Saturday 19^th

No evening planned this far. Although? (more later)

The STRAW TOURS

June 7 ? 13

The Conference commences with two house-tour convoys which will collect participants from different countries (including England, France, Germany and Austria), and tour around Europe for one week. The convoys will make stops at buildings and educational institutions along the way.

You can join the convoys by riding the bus or driving your own car. The routes of the convoys are still under development. At the moment one starts in Eire and one in Norway. Both end at Friland. (more later on www.thelaststraw.org)

The SUMMER OF BUILDING

Hands on Experience

June 20 and onward

To honor and strengthen the theme of the conference, we are organizing a "Summer of Building", with the aim of offering many young people a high-quality learning experience in different natural building methods.

The Summer of Building is an opportunity for young people to gain more experience in straw-bale building. During the conference, participants will have access to an ?Job Centre? covering a number of natural building sites to happen from June 2004 onward. A scheme (Hands for Knowledge) is set up to facilitate the exchange of time for experience, so you can choose from a variety of building projects that you´d like to work on during the summer.

Hosting a Summer of Building site

Are you interested in teaching someone how to build ? The Summer of Building will be run according to the Hands for Knowledge scheme, where a fair day´s work is exchanged for teaching, food and accommodation. If you are undertaking, or involved in a building project from the 20th of June onward (either northern or southern hemispheres) and are interested in teaching skills to enthusiastic students, then please include yourself in the register on our website, even if you´re not sure of the details yet.

Participating in the Summer of Building

If you don?t think that you can make it to the ISBBC, but you?d still like to do the Summer of Building, stay tuned in on the website for further developments. Our aim is for this project to continue beyond the summer of 2004.

Post-conference Summer of Building goings-on at Friland

We will be participating in the Summer of Building here at Friland. The most obvious project will be to finish off anything left incomplete from the workshops. There will also be houses at different stages of construction to be working on.

And last?

Please pass on this information.

? friends, nieces, colleagues ?

[Strawbale] ISBBC 04 Email-update no 1. Ultimo February 2004.