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Sat 13 June
Brighton Cohousing vision workshop
2 - 5pm in the Red Room at Phoenix Brighton (the arts centre), Waterloo Place, BN2 9NB
Creating a vision: what, where, who and why. The first step in creating a cohousing project and developing a business plan for carrying it out. Come and join us.
Phoenix Brighton is the large blue building on Lewes Road, near St Peter's Church at the South end of the Level. We will ask for donations (around £5 depending on what you can afford) to cover costs.
If you would like to be involved in this exciting venture, bring your ideas and your flexibility and let's start! It is a good time to be doing it. Developers are giving up land, loans are available (specially for co-operative housing, see below), housing authorities are keen to encourage affordable housing - and there is a lot of interest amongst people who would like to live in a sustainable community.
Please let us know if you are thinking of coming - we may be sending out some background materials. Email info@brightoncohousing.org.uk
We will have a follow-up meeting, provisionally Sat 4 July, but to be agreed by the people involved.
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Recent events
Sat 23 May: Visit to the Hoathly Hill Community near Forest Row, a long-established group of about 27 households and 65 people of all ages, originally based on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner. They run arts workshops there and often have a Saturday cafe which is open to visitors.
23 February: open meeting in The Cricketers.
22 January 2009. Housing writer and Green councillor for Brighton and Hove, Bill Randall, talked widely about co-operative housing, cohousing and community land trusts. Notes
6 December. Informal social and discussion on cohousing issues.
27 November. Fascinating talk on strawbale houses organised by Home Ecovillage Project. Strawbale building is at the cutting edge of low-impact building, and the speaker, Barbara Jones, was Grand Designs featured builder in 2007. More details at the amazonails website.
Saturday 25 October. Nearly 30 people came to a catch-up and networking event at Laughton Lodge, with talks about the Community Project, Brighton Cohousing, the Brighton eco village group and the Dream Life group in Lewes. We were also treated by residents to a very interesting tour of Laughton Lodge itself.
Saturday 27 September. A fun workshop to design a cohousing site. Two groups worked on two sites - one urban, one rural - to plan what they wanted for themselves, what they wanted to share and where dwellings and resources would go.
Visit to Canon Frome: Report from a member who visited recently... 'On a brief visit to friends living at Canon Frome, my main impression was ‘Food, Glorious Food’ – an astounding range and quantity of delicious fresh organic produce!. A significant amount of the required contribution to community work – 16 hpw per person - is taken up with farming and gardening. The rambling old buildings, which are mostly heated by calor gas (no ‘alternative fuel’ systems) also need a lot of maintenance. People tend to specialise in a particular area, and help out when extra work is needed elsewhere. The land, including a lake and 2-acre walled vegetable garden, is owned by the Association; all food produce is shared equally, and there are no private gardens. Members individually own the 18 living units (varying in size and layout) but ‘upgrading’ the building fabric is a collective enterprise. The community includes single people, families, old, young and in-between; the adults work from home, in local jobs, commute, or are retired. Community management is through regular meetings, and decisions are by consensus. For more information, look at the website or join the Open Weekend.'
Sunday 17 August: a windy picnic on the beach at Hove, followed by hot chocolate at Coriander's. Three new visitors and plenty of discussion.
Sunday 6 July: A discussion of possibilities followed by a visit to one of Brighton and Hove's Eco Open Houses (Whichelo Place) which is a very interesting private house built to high eco standards.
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