1980: News From Tagari

30 Jan, 2018 | Remembering Bill in Print

The Lost Stories are Bill Mollison’s articles published in the print magazine originally named Permaculture, then International Permaculture Journal and finally the Permaculture International Journal that was published between 1978 and 2000.
All stories and other content ©Permaculture Australia unless otherwise noted.

Story by Bill Mollison, 1980. Autumn Edition.
WELL, things at Tagari are starting to get a little hectic, but nevertheless exciting developments are taking place.
First of all, Permaculture Two‘s printing costs are virtually paid off so now we can expect some money back to put into developmental work.

Workshop helps develop a permaculture network

Back in the middle of January we held a consultant designers’ workshop to which 18 people came from all over Australia.
These people — among them architects, an Aboriginal community worker, a botanist, a design draughtsman, a landscape designer, a horticulturist — will become franchised permaculture design consultants around Australia, having completed the course and after submitting a number of design reports.
This is a further step in setting up an Australia-wide network of permaculture association members, regional permaculture groups, regional permaculture consultant designers (listed below), communities, alternative groups and interested people in order to foster information and resource sharing.
Bill Mollison is writing a pamphlet about this concept and its benefits for all which you will see within the next three months or so.

Short-term plans

We are holding a set of one week courses in April in Stanley for people who want to design their own property, for nurserymen or gardeners seeking contracts to build or supply permaculture plantings (advertised elsewhere in this issue).
Bill M, a group of Tagari communards and associates from around Australia are heading off to the USA in May for about three months to begin spreading the word as well as initiating a network over there by franchising designers contacted and interested and like-minded groups, and selling the books, quarterly subscriptions and some hardware. The feedback from this trip should be incredible.
On the way, Bill is doing a consultancy job in Hawaii for an island leper community. There is a possible broadscale design job in north India on the books too.
So, permaculture is spreading internationally.

Compiling the standard designs

The standard designs written of in Permaculture Two are now being put together for printing (with additional standards), the preliminary catalogue of which is printed opposite and will be available, finally, within three months from Tagari.
Also the Species Index written of in Permaculture Two is being worked up and will take quite a time to come together because its production entails a lot of methodical research and collation. We’ll keep you in touch by way of this magazine.

Much happening at Tagari

So, as you can see there is a lot happening apart from the building of a visitors’ centre, running a community, gardening, work on ‘the swamp’ etc.) at Tagari.
Consequently, with all this work and having come through a financially tight period we are looking for more members (we haven’t really stopped). At this stage looking for adaptable singles or young couples or older families who can afford to accommodate themselves. Tagari is a total commitment community with a minimum probationary period of three months.
For more information contact ‘The Gate’, Tagari Community, PO Box 96, Stanley Tasmania, 7331.

Permaculture consultancy

The Permaculture Consultancy services include:

• urban, small  and broadacre country permaculture design (involving total self-reliance design in energy, food, water, fire control, commercial enterprises, etc. and includes a species documented and diagrammed report)
• town/village siting and services design
• low-energy housing and structures design (‘The Permaculture House’ etc).

Fees are $300 minimum (covering transport, on-site consultation and report production). Fees, or similar, will be negotiated with unemployed groups disadvantaged groups, Aboriginal groups, etc.
Low-energy housing and structures design has a separate fee scale with prices on application.
Head office covering at present Tasmania, Victoria, large contracts, overseas contracts and low-energy structures design, at P.O. Box 96, Stanley, Tasmania, Australia, 7331. (004) 58-1142.
Consultants:

• Simon Fell
• Andrew Jeeves
• Ted Lament
• Bill Mollison
• Earl Saxon.

And at 15 Niagara Lane, Melbourne, Victoria 3000. (03) 602-3624 (Low-Energy Structures Design).
Consultants:

• Denis Sweetnam
• Jenny Bolwelt.

Regional Consultants:

• Western Australia – 102 Holland St, Freemantle.
  Ginger Gordy, Kirsten Beggs.
• South Australia – 26 Buller St, Prospect, 5082.
  Doug Swanson, John Fargher and David Blewett.
• Queensland – 56 Isabella Avenue, Nambour.
  Max Lindegger, Bill Peak.
• Rainbow Region – Rolands Creek Road, Uki. 2484.
  Bob Roe, John Palmer.
• NSW – 12 Mansfield Road, Galston 2154.
  Ruby Kynast. John Llewellyn.
• ACT – 12 Greenaway Street, Turner, 2601.
  Judith Turtev, David Watson.

Please send all correspondence to Permaculture Consultancy at the above addresses.
A further consultants’ franchising course is planned for October 1980. People are particularly sought for northern Queensland, Kimberleys and Top End, Pilbara and Goldfields WA and western NSW and Queensland.

Preliminary design catalog for the alternative nation

The Permaculture Consultancy Head Office, PO Box 96, Stanley, 7331, Tasmania, Australia is the design repository of the alternative nation, which means that they receive, edit, publish, mail order and wholesale any sort of design for the alternative nation (network), and at six-monthly intervals pay royalties of 15 percent to the authors, as a proportion of the retail price.
The consultancy prices each design, taking the advice of the author in this but having the final say on pricing as large-volume sales will mean price reductions and designs will therefore become cheaper as they are more in demand — sort of a self-pricing system.
Designs are standardized to A4 size and may be supplied punched or unpunched on a 4-post folder system. Folders can be bought from the consultancy, spine and front printed Permaculture Consultancy Standard Designs. Hand punches and 5-cut index sheets (packs of 10) can also be supplied. All these things can be bought at good stationery suppliers.
Kits and booklets are also supplied for specific areas and some of these may be handled on a retail basis only.
For some designs (eg. houses, boats and complex structures), a set of full-scale drawings are also available (at higher prices). Good books on specific design areas are retailed by mail order and entered into the general catalogue.
At long intervals (2-5 years) it is proposed to collapse all designs into a single volume publication and then to recommence new standard sheets. Microfiche and other condensed storage may later be available.
We appeal to any person with expertise to submit designs to the catalogue. Criteria are that they:

• are harmless to the environment
• use minimal energy or better, produce energy
• are clear, plain and well draughted
• are well-specified as to materials and usage.

We can draught for designers to a limited extent but prefer to receive A4 size sketches of good quality, with type written or clear handwritten copy.
A study of the preliminary catalogue will show that our designs and kits cover a wide range of alternative needs and will extend a lot further with time.

Code/Standard Design/Price($)

• A1 Tomato/Asparagus Polycutture $4
• A2 Culinary Herb Spiral $4
• A3 Home Production ot Potatoes $4
• D1 Complete List of Poultry Forage Species $6
• D2 Collecting Water from Rock Dome Seepage $6
• D3 Cattle Forage Species $6
• D4 Pig Forage Species $6
• D5 Sea Coast Species for Salt, Wind Resistance $6

Entrepreneurial Designs and Kits

• E1 How to Publish and Export Books (Australia) $20
• E2 How to Run a Festival Without Losing Money $20
• E3 How to Start and Run a Community $20
• E4 Criteria for Starting and Financial Enterprise $$6
• E5 How to Run a Trust (retail only) $40
• L1 Rock Dome Planting $4
• L2 Tidal Flats Ponds $4
• L3 Flatland dam and House Site $5
• M1 Farm Link $4
• M2 Wayside Marketing $4
• M3 Self-pick Sales $4
• P1 Mosquito Control $4
• P2 Blackberry Control $4
• P3 Fox Predation prevention $4
• P4 Planting in the Presence of Rabbits $4
• P5 Traps: 1-Rabbits $2; 2-Government Sparrow
• Trap $2; 3-Blowfly $2
• S1 Trellis Structures and Planting, Sun Traps $4
• S2 Collecting Water $4
• S3 Shade House (documented) $8
• S4 Attached Glasshouse (documented) $8
• S5 Flatland House Designs with Dam (and variations) P.O.A.
• T1 Pruning in Permaculture $4
• T2 Domestic Sewage Disposal $4
• T3 Community Sewage Disposal $7
• T4 Planting on Broactscale $4
• T5 Uses for Tyres $4
• T6 Fuel Production from Plants: 1-Alcohol Distillation Design Layout $8; 2-Diesel Oil Seed Processing $8.
• U1 Contact Cropping in Neighbourhoods $5
• U2 Dispersed Tree Crop with Contract Sates $5
• U3 Dispersed Livestock With Contract Sales $5
• U4 Types of Public Allotments $5
• U5 Urban City Farm Development $8

1980: Time to link-up

30 Jan, 2018 | Remembering Bill in Print

The Lost Stories are Bill Mollison’s articles published in the print magazine originally named Permaculture, then International Permaculture Journal and finally the Permaculture International Journal that was published between 1978 and 2000.
All stories and other content ©Permaculture Australia unless otherwise noted.autumn

Story by Bill Mollison, 1980,  Autumn Edition.
There are now enough of us (the alternative society) with enough talents and land to link-up throughout Australia.
Already, we have set up an Australiawide (and NZ) distribution network through which we can distribute books and goods, seeds and manufactures.
Now after many group discussions we can isolate skills, needs and opportunities. Permaculture people are more or less one large, hard-working community.

What is proposed is:

Gene pools

Gene pools of plants and animals in each main climatic area, possible as a linked institute.
We have some 300 species at Stanley and expect to plant more.  Others have sub-tropical and tropical areas under way.
These may eventually be a new sort of botanic garden system demonstrating design, technique and species assemblies for the area.

Distribution Net

Our publications or goods can enter this at any point.
Tagari can cover Tasmania, and MeIbourne city has core groups in every state and nearly every district.
Shopfronts, markets, warehouses and groups need to be registered.

Accommodation

Brisbane Alternative Group (BAG) is developing an ECHO (Environmental Community Hostels Organisation). Contact Daryl Bellingham, c/- PO Box 238, North Quay, Brisbane, Old 4000.
BAG has plans for a hostel and we hope others take up this idea. Tagari is in the process.
What other system can we offer ‘ecological travelers’?

Locating

A catalogue of addresses of talent is needed — if we need a design engineer, lawyer, planner, poultry breeder, where do we find them?
Permaculture Nambour may collate this as a group project. The idea is not to list all people, but to list all the skills known to exist in any area with a key person there to locate each request.

Designs and Instruction Kits

As Tagari already lists and sells permaculture-related designs and catalogues these, we could include any others for resale and listing on a fair royalties basis.

Land Loans

Many of us have spare land or money and with these we could set up our own land bank and land loan system.
Who will run or will help run this?

Transport Co-op

Carriers are expensive — can we pool or run local transport for our own goods?
Who will collate?

Specialties

Let us co-operate, not compete.
Again, PO Nambour has PO T-shirts and bumper stickers — ‘Permaculture is Growing’. Let us buy from them (and submit designs) instead of duplicating.
What other ways can we fund other groups?

Insurance

Dare we tackle a combined insurance (fixed amount) scheme for ourselves, replacing funds only when they are used?
Now, who can help, who can suggest new and better links?

Talented, scattered and many

We are talented, many, scattered, mobile and ready tor the next evolution — that of a truly linked community.
It’s time (to pinch a phrase) and if life wasn’t meant to be easy at least it could be better organised to support the alternative.
By co-operating we can support each other instead of people who don’t care and people who use the profits for themselves.
…Bill Mollison

Editor’s note

In the second last paragraph Bill makes reference to what became two cultural artifacts from the late-1970s.
“It’s time”, with which he starts the paragraph, was a popular song of the Australian Labor Party’s 1972 election campaign that saw Gough Whitlam elected to lead an federal Labor government.
Listen: http://whitlamdismissal.com/1972/11/13/its-time-audio-video-lyrics.html
The later passage in the same paragraph, “life wasn’t meant to be easy”, was a line by 1970s Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, that was taken out of context .
The line was a quote from George Bernard Shaw that, rather than signifying only difficulty, signified the taking of courage. Left from the quote by Malcolm Fraser’s critics was the rest of it: ” …my child, but take courage: it can be delightful.”
More: https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Malcolm_Fraser

Links with other ideas

The article suggests that Bill Mollison and his Tagari Community communards saw the development of a national network as necessary to permaculture’s spread. Design consultants qualified through a consultant’s course at Tagari would form a core of the network.
The ‘alternative society’ mentioned is a reference to the large numbers then participating in what was a significant social movement around environmentally and socially-better ways of living. Although the movement was amorphous and lacked any set of core ethics and principles, those participating in it felt part of it and also felt themselves apart from mainstream society. Permaculture incorporated some of the elements of the movement and, in turn, came to influence it. Many of permaculture’s early recruits came from the alternative movement.
The ‘Accommodation’ idea listed under Proposals might be seen as the incipient idea that would years later manifest from outside the permaculture network as WWOOF — Willing Workers On Organic Farms — the farmstay-in-return-for-work scheme. Although not stated in the article, there is a tenuous like with Bill Mollison’s idea of permaculture educators and designers moving around the country, teaching and designing in different places.