Policy 2: Vision, Mission, Aims
Andy Goldring
Public
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Vision:
A healthy, peaceful and socially just world in which we care for the earth, each other and future generations, in harmony with nature.
Mission:
To work together to enhance the coherence and effectiveness of local to global permaculture networks both formal and informal.
Aims:
To provide a collaborative and convivial online space in which to work towards the Co-Lab’s vision and mission;
To identify opportunities to enhance the coherence and effectiveness of local, regional, national, continental and global permaculture networks;
To research, assess and provide information about the current state and extent of permaculture thinking and practice and its strategic context to enable effective planning, project design and network development;
To identify and mobilise resources that support participants to nurture existing initiatives and develop new eco-social enterprises, projects and initiatives that address identified challenges, or add additional value to permaculture networks;
To communicate with permaculture networks and allies to ensure wide understanding of the CoLab and active participation from around the world;
To make effective links between permaculture and allied networks that enhance our collective work towards our shared visions;
To work towards a multi-lingual platform that enables wide participation from across the worldwide permaculture community;
To work towards eliminating racism, patriarchy, the class system and any other manifestations of the oppressive society (aka the Patrix) that present major blocks to healthy and diverse participation in both the Colab and the wider permaculture network.
To provide and document existing training and learning resources to enable people to participate and work effectively together;
To use and document the process of CoLab development to actively learn and unlearn organisational development processes suited to complex multi-layered networks.
Date agreed: 16th September 2017
Review date: Three months after the first meeting of the Permaculture CoLab Stewardship Council.
Andy Goldring Tue 8 Aug 2017 10:20AM
Hi everyone, during a really productive meeting with @andrewlangford a couple of weekends ago, we have modified the aims to address his concerns and ensure that the CoLab aims explicitly address the need to use the CoLab process to both explicitly learn about organisational development, and also to ensure that we use it as an opportunity to learn how to remove blocks to participation that can occur through centuries of oppression (racism, sexism etc). I'm really pleased with where we are now - can you have a look and make any comments, and lets move towards agreeing this policy formally in the next couple of weeks.
Robin Clayfield Tue 8 Aug 2017 10:35AM
Great work Andy and Andrew :)
Andy Goldring Tue 8 Aug 2017 11:47AM
I should say a big thanks to Naomi and Liora too!
Andrew Langford Tue 8 Aug 2017 11:00AM
I am very happy with the version shown here - gives plenty of scope for the many intersecting threads necessary to develop a thorough colab.
Naomi van der Velden Wed 9 Aug 2017 1:58PM
I think this reads really well now; succinct, yet information-rich. Great work!
Lachlan Thu 10 Aug 2017 5:02PM
Thanks to everyone for their work and persistence to get this developed! I'm happy for it to proceed.
Naomi van der Velden Wed 30 Aug 2017 9:27AM
Are we ready to move this to an agreement phase?
Martijn van der Kamp Mon 4 Sep 2017 2:48AM
I really appreciate and like the work that has been done here! Awesome, I love that we have been able to narrow it down to 10 goals. To move it further forward, I want to suggest to bring it down to 4 goals. In my view and experience, organizations run better if they have less strategic goals. Having less goals makes it easier to communicate what we are on about, and makes it easier for people to identify with the Co-Lab. In my view the goals can be summarized into four goals. The Co-Lab is all about 1) Providing an inclusive platform, 2) identifying opportunity and facilitating connections, 3) Stimulating permaculture entrepreneurship, and 4) Education.
In the list above, goal 3 comes very close to the mission of PIRN, so do we really need that one?
Goal 5 to me is an implicit part of realizing all the other goals and is inherently embedded in building a platform. Do we necessarily need a separate goal for that?
Goal 6, perhaps we can merge with goal 4 and have one goal about identifying opportunities and facilitating connections to grab those opportunities?
Goals 7 and 8, perhaps can be merged with goal 1 as it seems to be a qualifier on the type of platform that we want to provide? Alternatively, they could be part of our values on 'inclusiveness'?
Goal 9 and 10 can perhaps be merged into one 'education' goal?
Keen to hear your thoughts
Andy Goldring Wed 6 Sep 2017 2:05PM
Hi @martijnvanderkamp - I like the four goals and I also agree with @andrewlangford that we need to also have the clarity provided by the 10 detailed aims. I think for now I would suggest we go with the VMA as it is stated - I think the formulation of the four goals comes in useful when we are getting out to people in communications etc. There is a lot of detail in your post - point 3 and link to PIRN etc - would be good to look at this further. For me, aim 3 is a good reason to get PIRN in to help deliver that aim.
Robin Clayfield · Wed 26 Jul 2017 3:14PM
Thanks for all the good and hard work that's gone into this. Love and Gratitude, Robin