Cross Country Sustainable Community research project - planning begins!

Cross Country Sustainable Community research project - planning begins!09/11/2011   For those that do not know, the Cross Country Sustainable Community Research Project (CCSC), is our next major research project planned to launch during the summer of 2012. The goal is to visit 5-10 sustainable communities across the country in order to educate ourselves about various sustainble techniques. Through observations, interviews, and immursion we hope to aquire hands-on experience and education. This project will be an evolution to the 2009 Hawaiian Research Project (HRP). CCSC will allow us to explore not only sustainable techniques, but also consider various regions of the country as possible site locations for the D.r.e.e.m. Reality Education and Research Eco-Facility. This Eco-Facility, playfully deemed DreemLand for now, is the ultimate long term goal of D.r.e.e.m. Reality. It's mission will be to: Provide a focused workspace for research and application of environmental, economic, and social sustainablity Operate as a experimental model of "Sustainable Community" using techniques explored on site and abroad House several educational venues for a kid's camp, internships, workshops, woofing, etc Dedicate a significant portion of the land as a natural conservation for native plants, animals, and habitats The list of creative ideas are ever expanding, and we welcome others to contact us with thoughts and passions concerning the Education and Research Eco-Facility. We are presently still seeking education and land, but are eagerly projecting a breaking ground to this project by 2013. Back to CCSC! We realize that if we need to begin planning for this research project as soon as possible. As we learned with DreemKitchen - it takes a LOT to organize such things! Luckily, we have a good start with the guidance of the HRP. Additionally, we have begun diving into our "Literature Review" portion of the project. Dani has begun studying the book "Finding Community: How to Join and Ecovillage or Intentional Community", by Diana Leafe Christian. "Finding Community presents a comprehensive overview of ecovillages and intentional communities and offers solid advice on how to research thoroughly, visit thoughtfully, evaluate intelligently, and join gracefully"So far the book has done a wonderful job of introducting the concepts of What an Eco-Village is (and by it's other names such as sustainable community, intentional community, etc). Giving beautiful insite into the life of a "communitiarian". This, and other books are getting us prepared with the correct questions to ask and path to take for the CCSC. However, one more exciting step we have begun discussing in order to prepare ourselves for the research project and DreemLand is to actually live at a sustainable community. Melinda and Dani have decided to begin to locate a community to live in for the next year, to truly understand the community life. Contrary to the HRP or CCSC which will be visits to several communities, we intend to live in one. This also implies that D.r.e.e.m. Reality will be based out of a community as well. There are so many communities throughout the country and world to explore. Here are some resources that we will be using to help us find the right one for our needs: www.IC.org - Fellowship for Intentional Communities GEN - Global Ecovillage Network Both of these are extensive organizations that provide a wealth of knowledge about, for, and from Intentional Communities all over the world. They also each have directories that list the communities in your area!  Overall, the CCSC research project is begining to come to life with literature review and seeking a community to immerse ourselves in. How exciting!~Dani