What we have set up so far:
the sepper program where people rent a funky structure and get red carpet treatment to the best of our ability to offer a red carpet
permaculture bootcamp is about "learning
permaculture through a little hard work." People get a tour, a bunk and food. They work 8 hours a day on whatever the projects of the moment are. Some people work a week, some people work several months and we express our gratitude with event tickets. (the
bootcamp program evolved from the old "gapper" program)
ant village where people rent an acre by the year. Most are planning on being permanent residents.
deep roots where people get an acre for very long term so they can express their
permaculture vision over many years.
Once people have been here, we usually offer a variety of free stuff for when they come back.
We had somebody call and say that they live a couple of hours away and they would like to come by and get the full tour. We pointed them to the
sepper program and the response was "I don't want to stay, I just want a tour!"
So there are two important angles on answering this question:
1) the reality that we are soaking in right now
2) what we would like to have in the future.
Currently, we are under construction. We are low on people, we are low on time. At the same time, we have so much stuff that is currently viewable, a tour takes six hours if people don't ask any questions.
I like the idea that someday soon we will have:
- monthly tours for a low price
- some sort of
workshop every week
- more stuff, more people, more everything
In the meantime, people seem to show up, one at a time, and expect a person to drop their projects for the day in order to give them a free tour. But everybody that can lead a tour has stuff that they want to do instead.
It would be great if we were set up in a way to give a free tour. We just aren't there yet. All part of being "under construction" I guess.
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