Change came to Permaculture Australia at the Australasian Permaculture Convergence in Canberra in April 2018, as a new board of directors was elected at the Permaculture Australia annual meeting.
The directors are elected each year. Their role is to oversee the operation and direction of Permaculture Australia and to make decisions on how it operates. Some members of the board serve as liaison people between the board and Permaculture Australia’s teams such as communications, Accredited Permaculture Training and Permafund.
The meeting approved changes to Permaculture Australia’s membership structure and the distribution of digital and paper copies of the permaculture magazine, PIP, which comes with membership.
John Mckenzie, from Melbourne, presented his proposal for networking permaculture organisations to the meeting. John is a past-member of the board of directors although he is not on the new board.
The newly-elected board of directors. From left: Ben Habib, Ronnie Martin, Cally Brennan, Wendy Marchment, Keri Chiveralls, Virginia Solomon. Not present: Dylan Graves.
The newly-elected board of directors include:
- Ben Habib
- Wendy Marchment
- Cally Brennan
- Ronni Martin
- Keri Chiveralls
- Virginia Solomon
- Dylan Graves
Virginia, Ronni, and Dylan continue from the previous board.
Among new board members:
Ben Habib (and here) is a Melbourne-based lecturer in international relations and researcher into permaculture as a global social movement. He is also a participant in Permaculture CoLab, the global permaculture organisation currently in formation
Keri Chiveralls, an Adelaide resident, is associated with establishing the post-graduate Permaculture Courses at CQUniversity
The first challenge to be met by new members of the board of directors is understanding the current situation of Permaculture Australia and what the current working group teams do, as well as how the board and teams operate.
With new board members living in different states, we anticipate they will bring regional perspectives to the governance of Permaculture Australia.