Our first members' meeting

What is discussed in a members' meeting is confidential. It is interesting though to reflect on our first experience of one of these meetings, which are held monthly.

There was an agenda, each item allotted a time and for most, but not all the items, who would speak to it. It seemed quite a business like approach, and the facilitator did keep members to time. Surprisingly, given the restructuring and cash flow situation, there was no item on the sustainable financing of the project, including of key services to members living in the ecovillage. A 'friends' scheme was launched, which seems to relate the the sustainable financing issue (for the charitable work) for which brochures had been printed. Each member present was given four to distribute. At present there does not seem to be a business plan for the friends scheme - how much the scheme hopes to raise, by when, schedule for communications with friends, newsletter and so on.The issue of sustainable financing of services to ecovillage residents was not addressed.

Of the two and a half hour meeting, one and three quarter hours were devoted to a forum on community and commitment. The ecovillage is hugely confusing to newcomers - what is the community, what are people committing to when they become members - you have to be a member to build a house and live in the eco village. There's the educational charity that trades under SPIL. But SPIL also owns unsold sites in the ecovillage, although proceeds from the sales of these have to go to pay off loans from investors and banks. How VERT (Village Education Research and Training) run by Cultivate (a practical sustainability organisation based in the village and Dublin) relates to SPIL operationally and financially is not very clear to us. There is also the SPIL service company which has separate board and provides services to residents such as the district heating. The project when launched in the days of the Celtic tiger was designed to sell sites to people who could afford to build. Because of the economic crash, that didn't happen - and now the village is still only half built. With way fewer people than anticipated, the project isn't working as the founders envisaged and seems to be finding it hard to adjust to the changed circumstances.

The discussion on community and commitment aired the diversity of views. There was also a fair amount of frustration at not dealing with urgent issues. The promising business-like agenda did not deliver a clear list of actions to be taken to move forward. Two and a half hours on a sunny Saturday afternoon could maybe be spent more productively.