Saturday September 24, we invite you to join our clayball seeding  in Maniaki Vegoritida, Greece


below you may find documentation of the clayball seeding that took place last year in Paros: 

Paros Event Organisers| Tao.s center, the Environmental and Cultural Park of Paros and the Natural Farming Center

Responsible for the Paros clayball seeding event-event coordinator Elena Symeonidou

Snapshots from the 2nd compost-making workshop and preview of the 3rd workshop in September

Photos: RH/ NA


Stavroula and Rheinhold were excellent hosts of this second compost-making workshop. There was a good group with a healthy mix of neighbors and locals, friends from other areas and new people! The evening had many different parts and all contributed in generating a spirit of community, knowledge exchange and learning, communal food and fun with great music and dance!...

An exciting 3rd workshop on compost-making is in the works for September 5th that will take place in a garden in Marathon! Make sure to attend this one! Details will follow.

Compost making workshop: theory and practice Ecology, Economy, Philosophy

A cycle of three workshops addressing home compost-making is designed as a holistic approach to the issue of recycling at the source. The topic will be addressed in theory and practice with hands-on opportunity and it will address the practicalities of composting as well as its application and place in the philosophical movements in life.
Bring with you all organic remains collected during the previous week in a plastic bag. These may include peels, leaves, weeds as well as egg shells! We will provide the carbon-rich materials in the form of paper, carton, dry leaves, etc.

Dates:
Sunday, March 28th
Registration deadline 26/3
Sunday, May 30th
Registration deadline 23/5
Sunday,September 5th
Registration deadline 29/8

Instructors: Nicholas Anastasopoulos and George Loudos both practice composting with several methods for more that one decade. Philosopher/ writer Fotis Terzakis will illuminate the aspects of human thought and belief systems through various religions in relationship with the meaning of death and rebirth, the life cycle and nature through the different traditions.

We highly recommend participation in all three workshops which form a conceptual and practical unit and complement each other. At the end of each workshop there will be refreshments and snacks served prepared from local produce.

Attention:
Meeting places will be gardens in Nea Makri.
We ask for a donation of 5 euros per person.
Maximum number of participants: 30 persons

For direction and any last minute changes please visit the site one week prior to the scheduled event.

First workshop will take place on Sunday, March 28th at 4:30 pm at Nea Makri. You can reach the garden where 1st workshop takes place if coming from Athens or anywhere else more distant than a few kilometers from Nea Makri either by car or public transport. We generally favor reduced use of cars, therefore it is always a good idea to share a ride with someone else. If you drive, you must park on Argostoliou street and then walk on foot to Olympou 2.

Buses leaving from "Pedion toy Areos" with indications Marathon, Grammatiko, Agia Marina, all make a stop at "Agios Konstantinos", one stop past the Nea Makri square. From the stop you can walk to the house and it takes about 10 minutes to get there.
Please study and print the diagram below for directions and reference.




You may register for the first workshop until March 26/3 by e-mail: gloudos@teiath.gr mentioning the 1st compost workshop as title to your mail.

Deep recession is a reality and so is climate change!
We have been experiencing the consequences of rising destructive temperatures with the fires of 2007 and 2009.
While most ecology movements and mass media project a grim picture of the future in ecological and financial terms -a prospect that tends to paralyze and not empower people- in the case of the Transition Towns movement the central message is optimism:

Over the past five years Transition initiatives propose answers and ways of addressing problems that today appear crucial at a survival level such as climate change and the economy. Transition towns propose ways of tackling our current labyrinthine mess and attempt to give answers to these crises which threaten livelihood and the planet, such as the economic crisis and climate change. Central to Transition towns is the meaning of resilience, a term better known in ecology and understood as the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change, so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks.

In this presentation we will examine methods of the communities in a transition process and the up to the present results.

Time and place:
11:00 am, Saturday, March 27th at the foyer of the Aliki movie theatre in the Athletic and Cultural Park of Nea Makri.

Nicholas Anastasopoulos/ Zina Razis

The meeting place for this public forum is the foyer of the Aliki movie theater (a component of the Athletic and Cultural center of Nea Makri) and is open to the public.

How to get there:

If coming by public transport (buses going to Marathon, Grammatiko and Ag. Marina all make stops there) the ex-military American base site is also a bus stop, so just notify that this is where you want to get off. From there the Aliki movie theater is a 5’ walk inside the Athletic and Cultural center of Nea Makri.
If coming by car from Marathon avenue driving towards Marathon, about 150 m after the Dionysos intersection and just after the fire station you need to slow down and turn right into the Athletic and Cultural center of Nea Makri. Park and walk to the movie theater.

So what do we do after the Copenhagen letdown? Meet the Transition Towns Movement

Climate change is a reality.
Copenhagen didn't bring the deal people all over the world hoped for. There's something to be said about the gap between what people want and what governments deliver.
The psychological "climate" after Copenhagen seems to be that of disappointment, pessimism and abandon. Yet, pessimism has never been a good ally.
There are already several other approaches to these issues in the world that may serve as examples. See how others see these issues through the "lenses" of the burgeoning transition towns movement:

Transition Towns are communities found in several countries already that attempt to change their functions having in mind the looming oil depletion, the peak oil phenomenon, the energy crisis and climate change. They volontarily turn to renewable energy, cut down consumption, place emphasis on local food and local goods in order to increase resilience and work to foster community in order to boost self-reliance and individual and community robustness and health. This can be achieved through identifying specific targets and reaching them, targets that aim to re-introduce a simpler way of life, less dependence on fossil fuel and local production. Ia a sense, this movement is a direct descendant to the Permaculture principles and attempts to bring transformation within existing communities.

Transition Towns Movement