Welcome to EcoReality!

From EcoReality

We are developing an ecovillage in the South Gulf Islands of British Columbia, Canada. The ecovillage will be a model of sustainable land use and will feature public outreach and education as included goals.

EcoReality has agreed to acquire 37 acres of the former 100-acre Hughes Farm in Fulford Valley, 63 acres of which is to become community farmland. This land features large, irrigated fields, riparian areas on two year-round streams, and young forest. It backs on the Burgoyne Bay and Mill Farm public parks, which protect nearly the entire watershed of the two streams.

We are in the process of moving there (from our 4.8 acre "starter ecovillage," now dubbed "EcoReality Lite"), and plan to complete the move by August 2. Needless to say, some of the information on this website may be ambiguous, subject to change, or simply wrong during this move. Please bear with us while we re-organize our lives!

What's new?

• We've updated our brochure (530kb), which is available for downloading.
• New members, new residents, carrying capacity of EcoReality, discovering Permaculture, and more, in our latest newsletter.
• Mike Nickerson and Donna Dillman appeared at EcoReality, presenting "Life, Money, and Illusion: Living on Earth as if we were planning to stay," a talk about sustainability, on the evening of Sunday, June 29. Nearly 40 enthusiastic attendees (including local luminaries such as Briony Penn, Liberal Parliamentary candidate) enjoyed their talk, followed by a social on the back lawn until well after dark.
• EcoReality hosted the February monthly meeting of Island Natural Growers, a chapter of Canadian Organic Growers, of which we are a member.
• What do chicken farmers drive? Why, chicken tractors, of course! Find out what a chicken tractor really is, and how we built one. (As featured in Permaculture Activist and Communities Magazine.)

About our plans

We have a small core group of financial stakeholders, our members, who are currently working on the structure and organization of the ecovillage, including documents on finance, ownership, governance, membership procedures, business plans, values, vision, mission, purpose, land acquisition, and much more.

The members are aided by a larger circle of friends, family, and interested people, known as our Advisory Council. Many of these dedicated folk hope to live in our ecovillage someday; others are simply interested in assuring our success.

We think it is important to like each other, and to be confident that we have shared values, so new members go through a six-month provisional member period, during which they take part in decisions, but do not have veto power. Provisional membership can be terminated with thirty days notice by either the provisional member or the coop.

About this site

This site is in the form of a wiki, which is a collaborative authoring system. Feel free to browse as you wish, but editing or adding pages is available only to EcoReality members and their Advisory Council. There is a User's Guide for the software we are using that may help you navigate.

What's next

The next thing to do would be to visit any of the links to the left, particularly the entry points, which are pages that tend to refer to lots of other pages. Once you've looked around, if you think you might want to contribute to our evolution -- and possibly live in our ecovillage someday -- filling out a simple form will let you join in the fun as a member of our Advisory Council.

If you'd like to visit, please check out our visitor information, then check out our meetings, work parties and potlucks to find one that fits your schedule. We may be able to arrange visits at other times, but please contact us first.

Want to keep in touch?

We offer three simple ways of staying up-to-date with EcoReality:

1. "Recent changes" is automatically updated whenever pages on this site are changed. You can always find recent changes in the links on the left. Checking it each time you visit will keep you on top of what's happening.
2. Even better, if you're into RSS, we've got an RSS feed that will let your RSS reader know whenever there are changes. You can also get to the RSS feed by going to Recent changes and clicking on the rss link on the left, under "toolbox". There is also an atom feed there if you prefer.
3. Advisory Council members who have activated their accounts have the finest degree of control, via automatic email notification when pages of interest change. Set your Preferences to enable notification, then simply click on the "watch" tab of any page you want to track.

Thanks for visiting, and if you find this interesting please contact us!

Some Recent Activity

See all recent changes via the Recent changes link here, or via the main menu to the left.

3 July 2008

• (diff) (hist) . . Member obligations; 13:55 . . Jan Steinman (Talk) (cited minutes for 30 hour labour contribution) [2]

2 July 2008

• (diff) (hist) . . N Talk:Member obligations; 10:28 . . Jan Steinman (Talk) [2]
• (diff) (hist) . . Ecology, Energy, Resource links; 07:38 . . Jan Steinman (Talk) (added Aeronautica Windpower) [1]

1 July 2008

• (diff) (hist) . . m Welcome letter; 14:40 . . Jan Steinman (Talk) (→Facilities - typo) [3]

30 June 2008

• (diff) (hist) . . Meetings; 19:51 . . Jan Steinman (Talk) (→Saturday, 30 August 2008: Members Meeting - added tabled item) [4]
• (diff) (hist) . . Minutes:20080628; 19:48 . . Jan Steinman (Talk) (fixed some wording) [1]
• (diff) (hist) . . m Dwelling equity; 19:45 . . Jan Steinman (Talk) (subhead) [3]
• (Protection log); 19:44 . . Jan Steinman (Talk) (protected "Dwelling equity": approved in Minutes:20080628)
• (diff) (hist) . . Minutes:20080628; 19:36 . . Jan Steinman (Talk) [1]
• (diff) (hist) . . m Meetings; 19:35 . . Jan Steinman (Talk) (→Saturday, 30 August 2008: Members Meeting - Nightingale --> EcoReality) [4]