Our first event of the year, we had the pleasure of hosting two families for a founding gathering at the end of March.
The workshops had more detail now that we have made progress with creating the cooperative and getting more clear about the funding targets.
One of the families have moved into a campervan and had just arrived to Portugal to see if they can find and eco community to join long-term. The other family was exploring more generally and questioning if they would be ready to be pioneers, or rather join at a later stage. Everyone had lots of enthusiasm and things felt well aligned between all of us. The first family is planning to visit again after exploring more projects in Portugal, and are considering staying for a trial period with us in the Autumn.
Outside of the workshops, we had time for play and crafts, a visit to the local market, many nourishing meals together, baking bread, a visit to Catia's house for pizza and games, plus some work on the kitchen and the new yurt platform.
Lila took many photos and videos and edited this made this amazing video on Instagram, which give a nice overview of the founding gathering and invited others to join for future gatherings.
After the week of workshops, we continued with an integration period where we shared some sessions to explore personality types, our natural-build house ideas, and to celebrate the full moon with several friends visiting for a fire and shared dinner.
I opened the circle to give thanks and to acknowledge and celebrate the milestone we have reached to create the cooperative, which is set up to support the ecovillage project and also as support for friends in the wider community. We started the fire with some of the first draft papers of the Cooperative statutes, which have since been worked on, finalised and registered in the conservatoria office.
We enjoyed a pot-luck dinner and cooked bread and mushrooms on the fire. It was a blessing to be with friends and to sing together after dark, lit by the fire.
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