History of PC groups

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by Sonya, Sep 25, 2007.

  1. Sonya

    Sonya Junior Member

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    Hi,

    I've just mentioned this on another thread, but thought it might deserve its own...

    I live on the Sunshine Coast and we have a pretty active network happening here. Three permaculture groups - Noosa, Maroochy, Chevallum (PC Noosa which Geoff Lawton started and has now modelled hundreds of groups on around the world), Crystal Waters and all the well known pc people who live there, pc school gardens taking off, a great community garden with the Sunshine Coast Energy Action Centre (focussing on permaculture solutions to climate change & peak oil) and lots more.

    And... I was reading the New Internationalist magazine from July this year and they had a feature on pc. In it they said that;

    PC made it's first appearance in 1976 in an article by Mollison and Holmgren for Tasmania's Organic Farmer and Gardener mag. This was followed by a radio interview with Mollison which caused an 'avalanche of interest & controversy'

    Max Lindegger - built environment pc expert and one of the founders of Crystal Waters - invited Bill to Qld for a speaking tour and Max formed Permaculture Nambour (Nambour would have then been a major town here before the tourism boom dragged everyone to the coast) in 1976.

    Two years later Permaculture One was released.

    I've asked Max about it and he was reluctant to say it was the first - apparently there was a lot of pc activity around that time.

    Can anyone confirm or refute whether pc Nambour was the first?

    If it is, I really want to do something to preserve that history - a book, photo history, interviews with people who were there... all that and maybe even a dvd about the history of pc group activity in Aust. I've already scavenged the PC Nambour banner and have that safely tucked away in my shed, but would love to know if this is correct before I launch into another new project.

    Cheers,
    Sonya
    https://www.seac.net.au
     
  2. Fern O.

    Fern O. Junior Member

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    hi sonya

    have you talked with Russ Grayson? He's into collating the history of the pc movement.

    I was very keen to collate the history of permaculture groups when I started up the one down here, and while I was president of Permaculture Melbourne Inc. (PcM).

    PcM officially started in 1981 and we had our 25th birthday in 2006. David H says that Melbourne was very much the birth place of the permaculture movement, and there was alot of activity happening there. Both David and Bill moved to and lived in Melbourne in the late 70's. Will have to talk with Christine and John Pinniger regarding if their were any pc groups in Melbourne before PcM started and talk to Jason Alexander and Terry White too. From what people have told me, there was a lot of pc activity and informal groups that sprang up in alot of places... I understand Max being reluctant to say that Pc Nambour being the first. Would be good to also talk to Colin Ball about the starting of PASA too and permaculture in SA...

    The history of pc and pc groups and all those stories would be great to collate and make into a book/dvd or whatever. PcM was going to collate a book of stories from it's 25 years, but they didn't get it finished, although they did do some recording of stories etc. Virgina Solomon should know where those are...

    cheers
    Fern
     

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