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Next Brighton Cohousing meetings
Sunday 6 July: open meeting
A chance to meet others intereted and chat about ideas. Also to look at some potential properties and imagine what we could do with them.
3-5pm, Phoenix Community Centre, 2 Phoenix Place,
Brighton, East Sussex, BN2 9ND. Phoenix Community Centre is behind Phoenix Arts Centre by St Peters Church. See map
Other events
Eco Open Houses
Visit eco-houses in Brighton & Hove: 28-29 June and 5-6 July
The event aims to empower and inspire members of the public to make environmental changes to their own homes through seeing what practical steps other people have taken in their homes.
Recent Brighton Cohousing meetings
Sunday 1 June: 6 visitors plus committee. General discussion about what we are looking for. Resolved to make some searches for sites/property for the next meeting, to have a 'real' framework for discussion about sort of structures we could develop.
Friday 28 April: An encouraging gathering of half the respondents to our questionnaire
Friday 4 April: Lively discussion of interests and experiences, from squatting to cohousing for older women.
Friday 7 March: Small meeting, with visitors from Oxford and Brighton.
Friday 1 February: Several new visitors and some lively discussion. People keen to try to get a speaker from the council to talk about housing and planning matters. We want to try to give some structure to the questionnaire social on 28 March to help clarify needs and build links. The idea was aired of a series of training meetings to help build the group.
Friday 14 December: A few mince pies, a review of questionnaires and a decision to hold a social near Easter for respondents. Some patterns of interests are emerging.
Friday 16 November: A positive discussion with new visitors to the group. Resolved to start constructing some financial models of how a cohousing project might develop.
Friday 26 October: General discussion with a view to finding what sites might be available locally.
Friday 21 September: Kevan and Gillian Trott (Brighton residents) recounted the adventure of building their Earthship France. Earthships aim to be self-sufficient in services - making the most of the sun, gathering and reusing rainwater, generating their own electricity etc. This earthship in Ger, Normandy, is the first official residential earthship in Europe and may soon be available as a holiday let!
Friday 20 July: Several new visitors to the meeting and a lively discussion.
Friday 22 June: Melanie Nock of The Community Project at Laughton near Lewes, gave a fascinating talk about their experience of cohousing.
Saturday 16 June: Excellent tour of 'green' buildings in Lewes and Brighton organised by Brighton Permaculture Trust. Visited a couple of school developments, a self-build housing group and a 'smart' house using some energy saving principles, with a talk by the architect or develper at each one.
Thursday 17 May: Met with Marian Barnes from CUPP (Community University Partnership Programme) about partnership with the University of Brighton. Possible activity-links were surveying local interest in cohousing (researching needs), charting and analysing group development dynamics (how do groups become effective - or not), and/or working with a Univ housing expert in relation to specific property proposals. Concluded we weren't ready yet, to define and focus on a group project under any of these 'headings'. We are too few, and too diverse in our personal housing aims. The discussion was useful and clarified the need to increase our membership and contacts, gather information for a 'needs profile', and develop a programme of meetings and outings that would be interesting and useful in and of themselves, irrespective of whether they resulted directly in re-location projects for group members.
Friday 20 April: Three new people came along and we exchanged lots of thoughts and ideas.
Sunday 1 April: We visited Earthship Brighton. There are regular tours around it which anyone can go on - see www.lowcarbon.co.uk