Fourth Transition Update

Transition Proclamation Signed

On Monday, March 16 the Sonnenschein Green Initiative presented a Transition Proclamation to County Lawmakers. Connie Sharp, Debbie Landers and Jennifer Dauksha-English stood before County Commissioners, the County Mayor, the County Executive Director of Economic Development, and the public, explaining the proclamation. In summary, they stated that Lewis County and the City of Hohenwald proclaim to be a community interested in relocalizing its economy through energy conservation, applying Permaculture designs, and through the creation of more green businesses. The proclamation will build on Hohenwald and Lewis County's efforts to make the town and county greener, safer and more economically viable. Members of the County Government gave an unexpected standing ovation after Ms. Sharp, Ms. Landers and Ms. English finished their presentation. A photo was taken of the County Government just before they signed the Proclamation. Attached here is the photo along with the signatory document. Click here to read Proclamation.



On Wednesday, March 18 the Sonnenschein Green Initiative held it's bimonthly meeting. There were 34 attendees to the meeting. Everyone applauded their own work and the success of the Proclamation. During the meeting we spoke about our plans for debuting ourselves as a Trainsition Town. We agreed to continue to wait. We began discussing moving forward with our plans to form a Resolution. Other items on the agenda for this meeting: plans for upcoming Green Evening Cafe's, completion of the Green Guide and new Sonnenschein website, exhibiting at upcoming green events and the Food and Farming Group gave a presentation.

On Thursday, March 19 the Lewis County Herald printed the following on the front page of the newspaper: Lewis County Government Supports Transition Town Declaration. County Lawmakers Monday Evening signed a document declaring their support in naming Hohenwald (and Lewis County) a part of the Transition Town movement.

The Sonnenschein Green Initiative has not yet declared itself a Transition Town or County despite the signed Proclamation. The group plans to go before the Hohenwald City Officials and the Hohenwald, Lewis County Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors seeking support for the Proclamation during the month of April, 2009. A celebratory event has been planned for June 6, 2009 to unleash Hohenwald as a Transition Town. A date was also set for September of 2009 to unleash Lewis County as a Transition County. The process is moving much quicker than the Sonnenschein Green Initiative organizers had predicted, when they started writing the Proclamation back in December of 2008. When they began the process the committee agreed that they wanted the community at large to embrace the transition initiative before any public declaration was unleashed. Although this process is not at all a required step in transitioning, the organizers wanted to ensure that the support for transitioning came from the residents and that the community leaders were provided the courtesy of having a voice in the declaration.

Aside from the County Government support received on March 16, more than 65 businesses and organizations have declared their support for SGI, during the month of March. The Initiative has about forty active individuals who attend meetings and/or are involved with one of the Sonnenschein projects. To gain even more public support and understanding, on April 26, SGI will host a Transition Town Green Evening Cafe open to the public. During the evening a presentation will be given on the history of the world wide Transition Movement and our local process, there will be a viewing of the Financial Permaculture Documentary about Hohenwald and the evening will end with a World Cafe on Transitioning.

Third Transition Update

The Sonnenschein Green Initiative, Transition Committee held a meeting Wednesday, March 4, with 27 people in attendance. Here are the highlights:

OUTREACH EDUCATION: Jennifer Dauksha-English presented the details for our Summer Permaculture Certification Series, and our 3-day Regional Sustainability Forum, which will be held June 5-7. The group spent 20 minutes reviewing Jennifer's 8-page newly developed Green Guide for Lewis County, TN. The group is trying to raise $800 by asking local businesses and organizations to join the initiative and get their names listed in the Green Guide. The Guide will hopefully be posted in a few weeks.

YOUTH EDUCATION: Debbie Landers again introduced the four students from the General Assembly Academy. The students started a blog - to view their blog click here. They also wrote a letter to the editor about the Sonnenschein Green Initiative - to read letter click here. Debbie shared the students curriculum that they helped design. Click here to view curriculum.

GREEN PROCLAMATION: Debbie Landers and Connie Sharp reported on the progress of the Proclamation. The group decided that the Proclamation would be brought before the City and County in the month of April instead of March, so that we have more time to speak with the City Council Memebrs and Couty Commisisoners. By postponing we will have more time to educate them on the initiative before they vote. Connie Sharp made photocopies of all the Commisioners contact information and passed this out to our group so that the group can make calls over the next weeks.

Food and Farming Working Group also held a meeting Wednesday, March 4. The group is organizing the next Green Evening Cafe' on March 24, 6-8:30 pm at the Emporium in downtown Hohenwald. The Food and Farming Group spent time figuring out the itinerary for the Green Evening. Presentors during the evening will include: Matthew English and Cliff Davis of Ecological Artisans and Casandra Warner of Cane Creek Nature Works Farm. We will also have a cafe conversation (for details on world cafe click here) on food and farming in Lewis County. There will be a seed and plant exchange as part of the event.

After the event planning session we split into three breakout groups: Farmers Market, Community Garden and Community Kitchen. The Farmers Market group noted that the creation of a Farmers Market was being discussed on both the city and county level. One of the members of this group has started communicating with a number of Amish and Menonite in the community to gain their interest in participating. The Community Garden group announced that Buffalo Valley was going to lease the group some land to start a garden this Spring. The lease will be minimal, just enough to cover property taxes. Just after the meeting about 14 people took a field trip to the new garden site. The Community Kitchen group did not have much to report on as this was the first time the topic was discussed since November, 2008. They did identfiy an immediate need for the community kitchen for a potential alternative cheese business. The group came up with a few next steps to contact other operating kitchens.

The next Sonnenschein Green Initiative meeting will be held Wednesday, March 18 from 11:30-1:30 at the Technology Center in Hohenwald. The group meets every other Wednesday. For more details about upcoming meetings and projects contact info@holisticecology.org, 931-796-4874 or 888-878-2434.

Summer Permaculture Certification Series and Demonstration Site

The Center for Holistic Ecology and Ecological Artisans will be offering a summer Permaculture certification series in Hohenwald, Tennessee. This series, as part of the Sonnenschein Green Initiative, will provide local residents with a unique opportunity to receive training and certification in Permaculture at a very reduced price. The organizers of the series anticipate training up at least a dozen locals and hope that the price reduction will enable low-income residents to attend. Aside from receiving this valuable training, participants will partake in the community design and implementation of the local Museum’s new downtown Discovery Center Permaculture site. This training and the development of the new demonstration site will be a first for Hohenwald. In fact, prior to a year a go, there were only a handful of locals in Hohenwald city limits that could identify the term Permaculture. This has changed dramatically since the October 2008 Financial Permaculture Summit and the post-summit outreach efforts.

Permaculture is a design science that takes a whole ecosystem approach to sustainable development. The word Permaculture means permanent agriculture and permanent culture. Permaculture developed in Australia in the late 1970’s by Ecologist David Holmgren and Natural History Professor Bill Mollison and has since spread throughout the world. Leaders of the sustainability movement are applying Permaculture principles and design methodologies to everything from gardens, home sites, village designs, businesses and entire regional economies. The residents of Hohenwald Tennessee are beginning to use Permaculture a primary tool for redesigning their local economy.

The summer series will be taught by local Permaculture Designers: Matthew English, Cliff Davis, Greg Landua, Jennifer Dauksha English, Albert Bates and Adam Turtle.

Summer Saturday Series (click here for full itinerary)
June 13 - Permaculture and Systems Thinking
- Evidence, ethics, principles and design science
June 20 - Natural Systems - Forest, Trees and Climates
- Tour different forest ecoregions in Tennessee
June 27 - Natural Systems - Water and Soils
- Principles of bioregion repair to restore water and soil sheds for productivity
(water storage, conservation, and soil food web)
July 11 - Domestic Systems
- Alternative energy, natural home building and landscape design
July 18 - Cultivated Ecologies - Gardens
- Gardening, mulching, companion planting and composting
July 25 - Cultivated Ecologies - Agroforestry
- Orchards, forest gardens, propagation, aquaculture, bamboo, mushrooms and domestic animals
August 1 - Community Design and Infrastructure
- Business 101, financial ecosystems, regional currencies and strategies for earning a living
August 8 - Broad Scale Permaculture
- Urban design, village scale, ecovillages, transition towns, green ways, bioregionalism and carbon farming
August 15 - Elements of Practical Design
- Tools for site analysis (including zones and sectors), mapping exercises and conducting client interviews
August 22 - Design Day
- Tools for project management, giving presentations, costing and drawing
August 29 - Design Presentations (Open to the public)

COST of SERIES
$150 Lewis County Students
$250 Lewis County Residents or Chamber Members
$500-full series or $75/day for Non-Residents
Event Location - Downtown Discovery Center, Hohenwald

The event will be held in downtown Hohenwald. Meals, lodging and course books are not included in the course price. Classes will be taught at the Strand Theatre and Lewis County Museum Depot. In February of 2009 Directors from the Museum and Lewis County Historical Society approached the Sonnenschein Green Initiative Permaculture Team, requesting that the group design the Museum’s Discovery Center into a Permaculture demonstration site. Participants of the summer Permaculture training series will partake in the community design and implementation of this new downtown Permaculture site. The full implementation of the site may take many years to complete. The design will likely include: interactive Permaculture and soil food web areas, forest gardens, wetlands, water harvesting features and riparian zones, and a Native American and pioneer historical settlements with naturally built dwellings.

See picture of preliminary site drawing above right.

To register or to receive further details about the Permaculture training contact info@holisticecology.org or call 888-878-2434x5. For details about the Discovery Center project contact tonyturnbow@bellsouth.net. The Museum and Historical Society are accepting donations and volunteers to complete the development of the Discovery Center.

Second Transition Update

A lot has happened in the not so sleepy town of Hohenwald since my last Sonnenschein Green Initiative - Transition Update.

The Sonnenschein Green Initiative had a total of eight important meetings in ten days. Following is a brief summary of each meeting:

Complimentary Currency Working Group met on Monday February 9, with 5 people in attendance. You can read a full report on this meeting by clicking here. I will add that complimentary currency was later brought up during the February 18th Transition Committee meeting. There was so much interest that we'll be focusing our next Transition Committee meeting and an upcoming Green Evening Cafe on complimentary currency.

Sewage Treatment Working Group met on February 12, with 6 people in attendance. The City called for a meeting between their Engineer and our local Permaculture Designers. The meeting focused on designing constructed wetlands out of sewage lagoons and the development of bird habitat and a nature viewing area. The constructed wetlands would be designed to increase transpiration and seepage into the soil. This would decrease the flow rate and demand for electricity on a pumping station that directs water into a spay field.

Bioregional Congress Group met on February 15, with 12 people in attendance. The Farm Community in Lewis County, Tennessee will be host to the 10th Continental Bioregional Congress. The dates of the Congress are October 3-11, 2009. To find out more about the Congress, CBCX click here. Many Lewis County residents who are involved in organizing the Congress are also involved with the Sonnenschein Green Initiative. This group will be meeting every two weeks from now through October.

The Lewis County Chamber of Commerce held a luncheon on February 17, with 36 people in attendance. The Sonnenschein Green Initiative was the primary topic of discussion. The Chamber President invited Connie Sharp and I, Jennifer to talk about Sonnenschein. We were then asked to show the documentary of the Financial Permaculture Summit. View the documentary by clicking here. Several people came up to Connie and I after viewing the documentary saying that they were extremely impressed with the Summit and had not realized the extent of our outreach efforts. At least five new people showed interest in attending our upcoming meetings.

Transition Committee held a meeting Wednesday, February 18, with 19 people in attendance. Here are the highlights:

YOUTH EDUCATION: Debbie Landers introduced four students from the General Assembly Academy. Debbie and the students recently designed an ecological science curriculum. Attending the Sonnenschien Green Initiative's meetings and participating in related projects will be counted as school credit. The students volunteered to write the next article for our Green Living Column.

OUTREACH EDUCATION: I, Jennifer Dauksha-English presented the details for our Summer Permaculture Certification Series. The series will be 11 Saturdays, with 7 hour days, from June 13 through August 29 (minus July 4). The training will cost $150 for resident high school students, $250 for Lewis County residents or Lewis County Chamber Members, and $500 for non-residents. I also presented an overview of our 3-day Regional Sustainability Forum, which will be held June 5-7. Residents throughout Middle Tennessee will be invited to this forum to discuss and design working strategies for productive food, energy, water and resource sheds and for mapping the financial ecosystem of the region. Programs for both of these events are in draft form and will be posted online soon.

GREEN EVENING CAFE': Adam Turtle gave a brief overview of his presentation that he planned to give at the February 19th Green Evening. The group confirmed that logistical action items were completed. Lelia Ortel acquired cloth shopping bags to give away as door prizes.

GREEN PROCLAMATION: Debbie Landers reported on the progress of the Proclamation. She stated that more than five people had given feedback on the first draft and that with the help of the students, the final draft was near. There was discussion about the difference between a Proclamation and a Resolution. Debbie explained that a Proclamation meant that we would proclaim our intentions and that a Resolution meant that we would resolve to act out and implement what we proclaimed. A Resolution is a much more political process that could involve several months of drafting language that the City and County could agree upon. The group decided that the Proclamation would be brought before the City and County in the month of March. We decided that the Resolution could come maybe in six to nine months.

ECO-TOURISM: I, Jennifer Dauksha-English presented my plan for creating a Green Tourism Guide for Lewis County. The first draft is eight pages and incorporates all the green events, projects, business and organizations in Lewis County that our affiliated with the Sonnenschein Green Initiative. There is money left over from the 2008 Sonnenschein Festival, to print the guide. We'll also likely ask businesses and organizations to pledge $20 for printing. Also with tourism, Tony Turnbow asked us to put together a one page article on Sonnenschein to be inserted into the County's official Tourism Guide. Lastly, the Chamber of Commerce reported that several of our green events are now posted in regional tourist guides and are now posted on the Lewis County Chamber website.

Food and Farming Working Group held a meeting Wednesday, February 18, with 10 people in attendance. The group discussed the potential of creating a Farmer's Market in Lewis County. There was a consensus that maybe the best place to start was by creating a community garden. The group is currently in the process of seeking a site for this garden. Bob Ogden shared his intention of starting a worm castings business in Lewis County. The group is also organizing a seed and plant exchange as part of the next Green Evening Cafe'. Food and farming is the focus of the next Cafe' on March 24, 6-8:30 pm at the Emporium in downtown Hohenwald.

Economic Development Working Group held a meeting Wednesday, February 18, with 9 people in attendance. The group discussed their interest in creating a green demonstration building as an office for Sonnenschein. They also discussed the need to contact city officials and county commissioners - to inform them to put money towards local economic development, creating a green business park and for attracting green businesses to our area. The group also talked about incubating new green businesses and potential funding through the federal stimulus package. Lastly, a County Commissioner had asked our group to form a list of potential green businesses. Deben Tobias volunteered to compile this list.

Discovery Center Working Group met on Thursday, February 19, with 3 people in attendance. The group is progressing in its design of a Permaculture Demonstration Area behind the Lewis County Museum. Maps and drawings are being created. A meeting will be held in early March with the historical society to review the proposed design.

The next Sonnenschein Green Initiative meeting will be held Wednesday, March 4 from 11:30-1:30 at the Career Center in Hohenwald. The group meets every other Wednesday. For more details about upcoming meetings and projects contact 931-796-4874 or 888-878-2434.

IN HOHENWALD WE TRUST

The Sonnenschein Green Initiative had its first meeting on complimentary currencies, Monday February 9, 2009. Myself, Jennifer Dauksha-English, Patrick Gibbs and two members of the local Chamber of Commerce met over tea to discuss transition economics. We first assessed our current situation. Aside from talking about the state of the world's economy, our assessment was mostly over the experimental local 'Chamber Bucks' project that was implemented during the October 2008 Financial Permaculture Course. The ups: it happened; we circulated $4500 with local merchants in five days; new businesses joined the Chamber just so they could use the 'Bucks'; a number of businesses and residents got excited about the idea. The downs: only Chamber members could use the 'Bucks', the businesses were poorly educated about the experiment; some businesses refused to use the 'Bucks'; the majority of businesses took the 'Bucks' directly to the Chamber for reimbursement instead of circulating them in the community; there was also discrepancy around giving Federal notes as change - some businesses were giving change and others weren't. This became especially problematic when one business who gave change then went to use the 'Bucks' at a business who wouldn't give change.

From this evaluation of our active experiment, we determined that the following actions need to happen before we experiment with the 'Bucks' again at another event:
1. The Board of the Chamber of Commerce needs to create criteria for using the 'Bucks'
- for example: that it needs to be worth the face value and that federal notes should be given as change;
2. This criteria needs to be printed on the 'Bucks';
3. The criteria needs to be e-mailed, mailed, delivered by hand and announced at Chamber events to all Chamber businesses;
4. Someone needs to go door-to-door to get businesses educated and excited;
5. We need to educate our local Government and get their endorsement.

One of the ladies from the Chamber said that after reading up on Complimentary Currency, she was inspired by the Ithaca program using 'In Ithaca We Trust' on their Currency. That got us all going on Hohenwald, TN and we all agreed that our 'Bucks' need to read - 'in Hohenwald We Trust'. I wish I had my audio recorder with me that day. Both of the two ladies from the Chamber of Commerce spent most of their lives in Hohenwald. They were telling Patrick and I stories about milking cows, raising gardens and living in a way that took care of one another. One said, "It was just our way of life. It was the way I was raised. We didn't need a high paying job back then." They went on to say that they felt strongly that Hohenwald could return to that way of life it needed, because people weren't that far removed from the basics of living off the land and in community.

After this inspiring 'In Hohenwald We Trust' conversation, the four of us made some decisions that had the following action items:
1. Form a separate working group that would meet once a month. During these monthly meetings we would discuss reading assignments on complimentary currency. None of us felt like we had enough knowledge about the subject to feel comfortable explaining it to others in the community;
2. Invite others, especially a few key bankers to join in this working group - to learn;
3. Host an evening presentation and possibly a world cafe in June or July on complimentary currency and transition economics;
4. Organize a 3-day complimentary currency course September 18-20. We would hire someone from the USA or maybe Germany to teach the course and then have that teacher stay through the Financial Permaculture Course September 22-26 and lead a design on developing a currency for Lewis County;
5. Hope that at least four Hohenwald, Lewis County residents attend this course, just enough to get the seed planted in the community so that a stronger team can continue working on implementing a real local currency within the next five years;
6. Engage the regional sustainability forum that I, Jennifer am a part of organizing. It's a statewide forum but we also have a west, middle and east Tennessee forum. I would love to see that our middle Tennessee forum is engaged in thinking about a regional currency beyond just Hohenwald, Lewis County - I see this as more of a ten year goal;
7. Host another Complimentary Currency Design Course in 2010 or 2011 and have this second design be the real deal. The first design would be more of a teaser and a portal of entry. We could use the results of the first design to educate the public, further experiment with our 'Chamber Bucks' and of course further educate ourselves. By 2010 or 2011 we may have enough people in the community supporting the idea that a real design could be implemented, and I would hope that more members of the community would participate in the design process.

Complimentary Currency is a worthwhile conversation for our community to be having. We've determined though that it's not our priority right now. Our priority now is to educate the community about Permaculture and simple relocalization strategies; to get as many organizations and local Legislators involved; and to increase our communities ability to communicate about these important issues - by creating participatory social learning moments. Although the Complimentary Currency is in the background, completing the action steps outlined above is leap in the right direction. It's possible that more local people will want to join in the process and speed up implementation. It's also possible that new faces will arrive in Lewis County, wanting to live here because of the chance to work on these types of projects and live in a community that values earth care, people care and fair share. One of the ladies at the meeting is also a real estate broker. She said that five different families in the past month were interested in moving to Lewis County because they heard about our efforts to green the county! Yeah, is all I can say!!! Yes, in Hohenwald We do Trust!!

Financial Permaculture Certificate

The Financial Permaculture Institute team has decided to move forward with creating an advanced certificate in Financial Permaculture. While 2008 was the pilot for the Financial Permaculture Course, we anticipate that 2009 will be the pilot for the new certificate. We'll be working on the content and required curriculum for the certification over the next six months. We hope to engage many Permaculture designers and financial experts in this process. We'll be creating a place on www.financialpermaculture.org to engage individuals from the business, non-profit and education sectors, to come together to create a forum around the certificate. Until that forum is created, please post your thoughts as blog comments.

The only decision that we've made so far is that the Permaculture Certificate will be a prerequisite to this advanced training. We'll be keeping you updated on the progress of the certificate!

Proactive with Permaculture

Catherine Austin Fitts and I had a call this week about instructors for the September 22-26, 2009 Financial Permaculture Course in Hohenwald, TN. We agreed that the main criteria for our instructor search was that the instructor have these qualities: knowledge relevant to economic development in Hohenwald, tools easy to replicate and that they themselves have hands on experience not just theory. We both felt that all of the 2008 FPC instructors fit this mold and are confident that we'll bring in even more instructors in 2009 who can be proactive with Permaculture. We will be bringing back many of the original FPC cast and adding some new faces to the team for diversity and depth.

Being proactive with Permaculture also came up several times during our local Sonnenschein Green Initiative meetings in Hohenwald, while the group has been declaring its mission and purpose. We were all in agreement after someone shared that our groups efforts need to be proactive and focused on designing and implementing working solutions. In the past 10 meetings we've had, I can't remember the group once getting bogged down by the woes of the world. No one gets hung up on the problems or focuses on taking sides. It's been probably the most inclusive proactive group that I've been a part of. We seem 100% committed to taking constructive action. That's the other exciting news about this team of people - they're not just sitting around talking - change is happening - the transition is under way - these folks are taking action.

After a general round of check-ins and proposing the agenda, our meetings usually start with updates and reports from folks who've worked on projects and implemented actions since the last meeting. We generally go through a round of defining our goals, marking priorities and discerning our action plans and next achievable steps. Most folks volunteer for tasks. We have breakout sessions on specific projects for deeper discussions. When problems arise the group looks for solutions. Everyone's learning to be opportunistic and optimistic. We're a bunch of networking wizards, cycling energy in the system - I'd like to think!

The dynamic of this proactive group of doers and designers reminds me of a productive Permaculture site. The group is diverse and inclusive to newcomers. The group looks for and acts on opportunities around all the margins. Our first motto was Green = No Waste. We've learned to stack events and projects and collaborate with any and every person or organization who has something to offer. We're also creating some working routines based on evaluated successes. Permaculture is so at the core of our process that we are using the Permaculture principles to steer our meetings, relate to one another and the community and in our proactive stance we gather around.