8/8/2005 From Dale: Natalie offered the use of a 504 sq. ft. conference room at Habitat Suites
along with an LCD projector.

7/28/2005 From Dale: After Marjory decided not to head up the organization for a bio-regional
conference in Austin, I proposed a less ambitious plan to host an Austin Permaculture Weekend.
The only response I've gotten so far was a generous offering from Natalie at Habitat Suites of
a meeting room for the event and a projector for digital slide shows. Is spring still a good
time for the event? Is anyone interested in planning the event as a cooperative, leaderless
team? I don't expect it to be too difficult or time consuming. Thanks. Dale

Here's the email I sent to the list a while back:
Re: [austinperm] Re: Cen Texas Bio Regional Congress
7/22/2005 3:49 PM
I had been thinking about trying to organize a regional permaculture
conference in Austin when Marjory suggested a more ambitious plan. If
she's lost that ambition, then perhaps we could resort to a two-day
event similar to the what the Ishmael Austin group did a little over a
year ago in February. For that event, folks mainly from the area, but
also from out of state, came together at Casa de Luz in a rented room,
donated $0 to $20 (what they could afford...most people paid closer to
$20 than to $0), listened to two guest speakers, had organized dialog,
listened to a couple of musicians, did an exercise or two, got updates
of projects that people were working on, and more. Most of that was
Saturday; on Sunday, there was more dialog and a Q&A session from
Daniel Quinn. It was a great event and did not require that much
planning.

I've had the urge to talk with a bunch of folks about serious
permaculture projects going on in Central Texas because it is
frustrating to always read stories that don't seem relevant to our
area. Out-of-state folks would be welcome, but I doubt many would
consider it worthwhile to come. I'm interested in sharing experiences
with people who really attempt to do permaculture in Central Texas. I
want to talk to people who know that pill bugs aren't necessarily a
beneficial critter, that the local planting guides don't seem to work
for everyone, that rain collection systems can breed mosquitoes, that
strawbale construction may or may not be a good building material for
the torrential rains that might splash all over them, that ponds
evaporate at a rate of xyz gallons per day, how the prevailing summer
and winter winds tend to behave, what kinds of window overhangs are
appropriate fro our latitude, etc.

With the Ishmael conference, a group of folks sat down and threw out
ideas for what kinds of talks, dialogs, announcement formats, etc.
could be done.

If people are interested in being on such a committee, I imagine it
would require only a few total hours of work per person.

I'm willing to collect names, but I think we can accomplish such an
event without one leader since it is not very complicated, and does not
require people to get plane tickets and such since it's mainly a
local/regional event. Let me know if you're interested so we can talk
about if/when/where such an event could happen.

Thanks,

Dale
cell: 506-1113