Linda Beamish
Progress Report
The Tree Ark Project – project start date August 08
Sustainable Community Living Project
Norfolk UK


May 7th 2009:
Foundation Meeting for the Tree Ark Project community.
Most present.
Minutes to be posted separately.
In short, the community (all friends), were all happy to sign a formal constitution as drafted by 'The Guild',
Were all very interested in working on land management and regeneration schemes, and agreed with all the community principals, including having enhanced CRB checks, proposals and aims - consensually.


I did not think it prudent to invite the clients to the foundation meeting.  
(One of them had already condemned community members of 'proven need', assuming them only to come from a non-working society base - and not as currently worse-off working... in fact, she said she "didn't want a bunch of  'doley dossers' on her land... )  Please see how difficult it is for ALL of us rural self-employed people (especially for lone parents such as myself), and how unjust her assumption was - links to the findings as proven below: 
/uploads/3/4/6/4/3464330/rountree_foundation_exclusive_countryside.pdf 
/uploads/3/4/6/4/3464330/business_journal_article-theruralentrepreneur.pdf
/uploads/3/4/6/4/3464330/defra_tackling-stress_in_rural_communities.pdf
(N.B. Why did they think I was happy to work in exchange for a free plot of my own - if I was not in need of one in the first place - I certainly couldn't afford to work for free, and effectively this is what has happened.  Please read on ** - a month after the reference to 'doley dossers', the clients decided to sell their land without going any further with these proposals - leaving me with an intentional community who were all relying on me to get them the affordable rural housing they needed - no land, lost money for all the websites, graphics & expenses - and lost paid working hours totalling many 6 figured sums.  LB 5th October 2010.)

May 20th 2009:
Met with a potential client, gained through the 'Earth Day' Exhibition.  
It transpired that he is a landowner/landlord of a commercial site (of over 1 acre) in Norwich, who would like to use my consultancy services to source ecologically robust materials for the reconstruction of his site and premises.


May 22nd 2009:
Met with a lady who is now sitting wading through a year's receipts and putting my accounts into books!  Not only that, but she would like to be our community treasurer, and to join our community too!


May 27th 2009:
Paul came round to set-up some elements on the website and resolve some outstanding issues.


June 16th 2009:
Met with a colleague regarding a project which I was passing to him (the clients had decided that I would not be able to offer them the time they needed due to my work on The Tree Ark Project).  I introduced the proposals of the sustainable community and non-profit to my colleagues, knowing of their interest in conservation, and through this meeting, gained their membership and a new member to our community: Avril Fox, a respected veteran Eco-Author, who has given her documentary support ever since - and just hopes that she finally gets to live the sustainable lifestyle which she herself has been advocating since the 1950's.  Aged 93 now, she is worried that this opportunity will not happen quickly enough for her.


June 19th 2009:
Met with the Local Authority's Community Officer.  Once we have assurance of planning on any site, we will have the full support of his team for linking our community with the existing community of the area surrounding the site.  This includes marketing and help with presentations and enquiries.

June 20th 2009:
Met with Eastern Synergy to network our proposals, which were greeted with a very positive response, and the potential of another two communities to facilitate! 

June 23rd 2009:
Met with Cue-East representative in Norwich to discuss our proposals.  They were very helpful and suggested that I apply for a small grant to illustrate one element of the scheme of proposals. I was also given some contacts, and shown film and presentation equipment which I could use freely as a non-profit.

June 26th 2009:
Went with Michelle to meet our local MP Norman Lamb, the 15 minute slot evaporated all too quickly, but I managed to divulge enough information and mock up presentation material for him to pick up exactly what our proposals were, and how they could benefit so many people in the UK, and elsewhere.  Norman Lamb kindly agreed to forward our proposals on to the appropriate Cabinet Ministers.

July 7th 2009:
Took a load of the blurb to Little Acorns networking group, not that I got to present it, but I did at least secure Alice's support as she promised to supply me with a list of contacts for our press release, and she also shares similar concerns for the future of her own children.

July 8th 2009:
Met with Mike to discuss our proposals and our website needs.  Unlike Paul, I will have to pay Mike for his role of website editor.  I left knowing that I had secured the assistance of someone who was capable of setting up the website as it was needed - but I was unsure whether his scepticism may cause me a problem.


July 10th 2009:
Met with the clients.  This proved to be our last meeting. **
(I have not included the details of our penultimate meeting, because it was not a formal meeting, more a verbal interrogation one Sunday afternoon when I went to pick the children up from their father.  I neither liked their attitude or being shouted at, when I did not have any document on me to represent my work on their behalf.  Suffice to say, I had been of the mind that our community would be better situated somewhere without this client's influence or control.  I had referred her to the website and previous documentation, but apparently they did not even have enough time to look through all the material I had worked so hard to achieve to establish the right of the sustainable community on their land - and all without any of their investment funding!!!)
The client's called this meeting initially to discuss the figures relating to construction, but by the time of the meeting, had decided to just sell the site.  They gave me the contact details of their accountant who was dealing with the sale of their land.  I did not bother to contact him.

N.B.
I contacted all the community members after this meeting to advise them of the situation.  One of our group went out to see the site with a view to purchasing it, but I advised against this investment.

My initial meeting with the Principal Planning officer had left me under no doubt that proposals for this site would be incredibly difficult to substantiate or establish, and he had also led me to understand that, if the community complied to guidelines, there may be council asset land which would be far less contentious.

Although this all left a sour taste, (and without even a plot of my own in payment), it effectively left me free from any untoward control, and with a series of social enterprises as well as a sustainable community living project!

I decided to continue onwards.  I had managed (?) without any income for all the work for over a year by this time (by working as many 22 hour days as possible to work full-time on these proposals, and work full-time on paid projects simultaneously.

All the expenses, costs, marketing promotion material, graphics, domains and websites had all been paid from my own pocket.  The only way that I would ever be able to get a return on the investment of all my working hours - or the expenses, was to continue onwards.


July 24th 2009:
Met with Mike to discuss the website in further detail, and to provide him with the material he needed to load.  We also discussed his fees, and I paid half the total amount due, later buying the website template option which would also enable him to use some stunning templates for other projects.

July 25th 2009:
Met with our treasurer to give her an update, and to check on the progress of my accounts.


Mid August 2009:
Finally caught up with the workload which had consumed me since the summer of 2008!! - and spent two weeks on holiday camping with my children and dogs - taking my notebooks and laptop to continue researching & writing articles for the my full report.


21st September 2009:
Met with National Westminster Bank's acting business manager, she seemed very optimistic in offering us the business accounts for the community and for Global Ark Projects.  (Later we discovered that these accounts had both been turned down.  There was no explanation.)


October 2009:
Finished my full report and emailed it through to Mike for listing on the website, but was surprised by his reaction.  I forwarded the report on to my ex-tutor from college, who thought it met with all the criteria, and duly got out his expert scissors to form the brief from my discussion. 


November 2009:
I sent the brief out to lots of people, but received no response from most parties.  Jacki from Pink Ginger films thought it was excellent, and re-affirmed her intention to film us.


The website hit deadlock.  I had already paid Mike over £800 by this point, and had paid another £200 odd on the website templates.  I could not afford any further funds to pay for the website to be finished.


I was completely devastated. - I tried fundraising.  Completing two grant applications took me about 2 weeks.  Filling forms in which only allow 1200 or 1000 characters when trying to express a series of proposals which all interlink ecologically themselves, is a virtual nightmare.


27th November 2009:
Went to a presentation by Dr Erika Watson on "Feminomics", which was very interesting and enlightening, although not totally in line with my own proposals, I did gleam one useful point by discovering that the number of people who work self-employed in rural areas is increasing greatly, while those in urban areas is decreasing significantly,
(This might explain why there are so few support systems in place for people who earn irregular wages and live in areas without public services and/or transport.)


8th December 2009:
Met with Norfolk Rural Community Council.  Had a very productive meeting, and have secured the support of the NRCC for any site which we manage to secure.

11th December 2009:
Had an email from the Guild commending my brief, and sending me two documents linked to potential land and grant sources.


16th December 2009:
Sent an email out to all the Local Authorities, and other asset land owners, explaining our proposals and aims, detailing the structures and showing how our proposals meet all the guidelines.  I have asked all to consider our community for any suitable asset land.  (To 8th February 2010, I have had no response to the enquiry for asset land.)


January 2010:
I heard back from both grant application sources to say that I had been unsuccessful in my application.


I eventually found http://www.weebly.com in mid-January - and FINALLY have this website - I am loading all my own articles MYSELF!!!  (Yes, it really is that simple!) and, if I had not bought the .NET version for Eco-Designs and the pro version of weebly, it would not actually have cost me anything to set up.


As well as all the meetings/details listed in my progress reports, I have also been writing blogs and articles, preparing concept graphics, and networking our proposals.


My total hours on these projects is over 4,000 - from commencement of the project in 2008 to the end of January 2010 - for all these lost working hours I have received no income.


This shortfall has necessitated working hours which have often run from 0800 hours to 0600 hours, with 2 hours sleep, and another day of 22 hours in order to get paid jobs done in between all the work needed for these projects.


Having designed a sustainable community living project which is as replicable as it needed to be to meet the Planning guidelines, hopefully this work will not all have been in vain - and hopefully, at some point, I will have the opportunity of paying myself retrospectively!


More updates to follow as we gain results, land and/or network through meetings.

10/02/2010
My fiance's family have a plot of approximately 10 acres in the West Indies, which we may potentially be able to use for an eco-resort.  (Update 05/10/10 I've not been able to go any further with this, but someone else has land on another island in the Caribbean which they would like as an eco-resort, and I am currently looking at Participatory Eco-Tourism as a viable ecological design to help local people in the area.  Please see EPI http://www.econ4peace.org for more information on what can be achieved in areas of deprivation.  LB)


N.B.  I've been so busy trying to get all the websites set up, the articles & promotional blurb written since February, that I haven't had time to update this progress report - I've actually found that Twitter was far better to write a short tweet about what was going on and what I was doing, so if you'd like to know where we are, for now, please see my blog on: http://www.twitter.com/anearthmother