Ray Warton's Hedge Schools

David Trammel's picture

I wanted to copy this information here, it see if we can come up with any helpful information as well as to keep the discussion on it on going. Seems a wonderful start on a local organizaton that people looking to begin their own Green Wizard group locally can use.

---

In this week's Open Post on Ecosophia, long time commentator Ray Warton discussed the way he has been promoting sustainability and green wizard skills in his community:

"It has been a hot week in the garden and I am tuckered. But I gotta get this in as early in the comment roster as I can manage, because I am looking for guidance from JMG, as so many of us are, and from the commentariat at large.

So I been busting tush to get The Hedge started. Its a community project I am trying to realize inspired by the Green Wizard Towers, but reinvented to try to fit into a niche I am vaguely feeling in my county. Imma share what I got on it here with y’all a looking for commentary and ideas. Help really is what I am looking for, because I am rounding up people, and pitching the group and pushing for it, but I need to get my words better so I can articulate what I am doing better with the folks I am attracting.

‘The Hedge’ is the name of the project at large, and there are two component events I am hosting, The Hedge Meeting and The Hedge School. The Hedge Meeting I did on about a month ago, and it was crackerjack, had 17 folks, many of them from regional farmer markets, come and everybody took a turn talking about concerns they have for the future, and a fair share of free association too, as I facilitated the group very loosely, because I was trying to fel out the group to see what there was interest in and such. The next Hedge Meeting in this Sunday. Then I am going to try the Hedge School for the first time on the 15th.

First, this is what I wrote up on the purpose of the Hedge:
“The goal of the Hedge is to encourage individuals to deliberately live in accord with their own perspective on how to make their own lives, the lives of others in the Hedge, our community, and the environment in which we all live prosperous, responsible, and secure.

“On the first Sunday of each month all who are interested in such a goal, personally or in principle, are invited to meet and discusses its meaning and implementation over a meal at the Sharehouse at 30n Beech from 4 to 7 pm. This is the Hedge Meeting, and it works toward the goal of the Hedge by creating a space for candid discussion of relevant topics in a gathering intended to foster wildly divergent perspectives on what need to be done.”

Then I been printing out little fliers to invite folks to the Hedge Meeting this is what they say:

“First Sunday of each month at the Sharehouse
30-D North Beech, Cortez
Open at 4:00
Dinner and Discussion 5:00.

The only requirement to attend is the willingness to participate in a respectful conversation.

Email questions to “Ray”
Call or message “Ray”

This month the prompt topic is what changes each of us can make in our own lives for the betterment of our community, by being more personally stable or by supporting those we depend on.

A conversation on our concerns about an uncertain future, and what we can do about it. Many of us are worried about economic, ecological, or social instability looming before us, which the conventional ways of our time seem unprepared to meet. But the discourse on these topics in public life are waylaid by worn out rhetoric, the intense emotionality of the topic, and profound uncertainty about the situation and what might or might not make a difference. If these concerns seem worthy of public conversation to you, please join us to share your perspective on our situation and what that means to you. In doing so, we may be able to rise to the challenges before us with clearer heads, and perhaps even a new found source of support to try what we might to make the best of our situation as individuals, as a group, and as a community.”

So that’s the material I already put out. The goal of the Meeting specifically is akin to a lodges ‘open’ meetings, its is more casual, just talking and everybody is welcome. Eat together, and I am going to give a rousing little spiel on the topic of the month then tell folks to go to tables and take turns talking about the topic dinner party style. Specifically I am working on focusing the group on getting folks from difference perspectives talking with each other, feeling comfortable disagreeing on what the nature of our problems are, but affirming that we can still work together to make out community better. I am currently working on a little guide for the conversation which I intend to present at the beginning of the conversation. “The four elements of a respectful hedge conversation” I haven’t yet found wording for it I am keen on, but I can roughly state the four elements as follows:
1. Respect the time of the folks listening to you by being concise and staying relevant to the topic.
2. Respect the diversity of worldviews in the conversation. Describe your views on the topic, no matter how controversial, but don’t try to debate or convert. We can disagree and collaborate at the same time.
3. Respect the autonomy of the speaker. Listen for clues about how you might help or encourage the person speaking, as the are now, with their distinct perspectives.
4. Respect your ability to learn. Listen for possible facts or experiences you have not considered when another is speaking, and endeavor to integrate them with your own knowledge.

There is a great deal more I am working on, but this is more than alot to present asking for feed back on. The hope of course is the get the Meeting to start conversations and raise issues, and then later to establish a school which works in a more structured way to get projects started, do analysis, establish crude mutual aid. If it doesn’t strain patience I might ask a bit of feedback about how to do the more structured meeting down thread in a bit.

Hedge Schools have a history in Ireland:
‘Inciting the lawless and profligate adventure’—the hedge schools of Ireland

Stepania replied to Ray's first post:
"Those are some interesting ideas you have put forth! I had a few thoughts based on what you’ve said, related more to the process side of things and less to the content side. Since you’re in the exploratory stages of your group, it might be worthwhile to spend a while longer on your informal gatherings than you may have planned to do, before moving to the more structured Hedge School that you are hosting in a couple weeks. For a more structured meeting which you would facilitate, you’d want to put together an agenda which outlines specific items to discuss, goals, projects etc. I think people often go into a formal meeting with a lot of wonderful creative energy, but it can be dissipated unless it is limited and directed into quite specific goals and outcomes. If you’re not quite feeling that you’re at the point where you could get an agenda together for the Hedge School, perhaps just spend more time informally gathering information, as you’re already doing, and learning what people are interested in. My apologies if you have already thought of all of this!

I think your writing is great, and your vision for what this group is all about will solidify as you go along. Taking the initiative to get something going is often the hardest part, and you’ve already done that."

Greer responded with this:
"Those are some interesting ideas you have put forth! I had a few thoughts based on what you’ve said, related more to the process side of things and less to the content side. Since you’re in the exploratory stages of your group, it might be worthwhile to spend a while longer on your informal gatherings than you may have planned to do, before moving to the more structured Hedge School that you are hosting in a couple weeks. For a more structured meeting which you would facilitate, you’d want to put together an agenda which outlines specific items to discuss, goals, projects etc. I think people often go into a formal meeting with a lot of wonderful creative energy, but it can be dissipated unless it is limited and directed into quite specific goals and outcomes. If you’re not quite feeling that you’re at the point where you could get an agenda together for the Hedge School, perhaps just spend more time informally gathering information, as you’re already doing, and learning what people are interested in. My apologies if you have already thought of all of this!

I think your writing is great, and your vision for what this group is all about will solidify as you go along. Taking the initiative to get something going is often the hardest part, and you’ve already done that."

Mark D said:
"Thank you for the energy you are putting into your project, and very good luck to you. I worked on a community organizing effort a few years back, based around a community garden and garden education. I don’t have a lot of wisdom to offer, and I don’t know your community at all, and this may come across as shots from the good ship obvious. So take these ideas with a pinch of salt.
– The creative energy from sharing ideas will tend naturally to build, crest and peak and then ebb away. Before it dissipates, try to focus the group in on a few specific projects where you can get some clear accomplishments that match the core concerns raised during the discussion stage. And then you can bring this same focus to the topics for the Hedge School.
– Be realistic about the resources that you have (which will be mainly the time people can spare) and what you can get done. Focus, focus, focus.
– You will need some sort of transparent way to capture all the good ideas from the discussion stage and prioritize in a way that keeps everyone on board.
– Try to avoid doing all of the leadership work yourself. Often community efforts stumble because one or two people end up doing the organizational heavy lifting and they get burnt out. It’s usually a good leading indicator of how promising a group effort is going to be if it’s hard to persuade other people to help lead it.
– Keep it fun, and loose. There’s a tendency for these things to get process heavy – lots of meetings and emails and stuff and, gods forbid, a facebook page or something. But all that requires time to administer and takes away from getting stuff done.
– Make sure to talk with other similar groups in the community (eg. there may be an agricultural extension office or grange nearby or something).
Hope that helps a bit. Good luck again!"

---
I'll post more comments as they happen.

Ha! I was going to start a thread on this and am happy to get beat to the punch!

Last night I did a Hedge School session, it went pretty good. Let me do a qick primer on what that means. The Hedge is a as yet amorphous community coming together to shelter our community from the harsher winds of chane which are blowing, by way of weaving our lives together for mutual support and by personal growth and improvement individually and boosting one another. That's the Hedge. There are two monthly events to realize this. The first event is the Hedge Meeting, any body at all interested in theory or practice come to that first Sundays, we chew the fat together, it's nice, and that's all its got to be. So, now we are full circle back to the Hedge School, which I did session one of last night.

The Hedge School is for people who are interested in really doing something to foster the group. I didn't promote it as much because I only wanted the people who would come with gentile prompting. Got 8 folks, mostly pretty good friends. I also didn't promote because the theory of the School is based on each person bringing something to present. It is simple, do something that you think is topical to the interests of the Hedge (work or something, organize something, study something, or limit something in your life) then do show and tell to a few other Hedgers about what you did. Simple, and if it works each meeting will have a case or two to contemplate about what each person can do. For the first meeting, I had to do all the presenting, four presentations (do, organize, study, and forego) on the four elements of the curriculum, and present really shoddy so everybody looking at it says to themself "I could do that!". So I didn't want a big turn out, because it would make it even harder for me to carry the meeting.

It went pretty good, B+ easy, something like that I figure. I explained what I was hoping would grow up out of the Hedge School (people that can make a Hedge, a community which shelters its members and those around in by making its members lives flourish and interconnect to face risk and uncertainty with a common front). Then I explained my logic for each of the four elements of the School curriculum by giving an example of each in my own life.

Earth: I live in a rural hilly area, but refurse to drive an automobile. So I flexed about an ebike I made to solve this problem. Talked about the economics of it in my personal life, what it would take to get other people on them, and what kinds of use ebikes need to justify the resources which go into them. This is work that I have done, acquiring a actionable skill and resource, which shelters me from fuel prices, and cost of living. This is how other people could do the same, or slightly different. Some folks asked for a personal presentation on what it would take to get one of their own on the road. Another friend offered his imput on the assist bikes he builds. We discussed how to get them to highschoolers... hook 'em while they are young! It was good. Earth path is about work done to make someone better hedged.

Air: I presented a summary of JMG's theory of Catabolic Collapse. People thought it made sense, we debated historical examples of societies which avoided the worse of its feed backs, and how much our society is or ain't particularly vulnerable. I Emphasized that we have tons or real great salvage options to cushion an otherwise daunting disruption, if we can only hone the hand skills. Air is about studying to learn how to better think about and plan Hedging.

Fire: This one I offered really weak sauce frankly. It is about burning away parts of our lives that have become deadwood. Personal Catabolic collapse if you please. I talked about changing my computer settings to not display images by default to weaking the internet's addictive powers, and then oathed to track my electricity bill and promised to donate 5 cents a kwh to a personally managed Hedge Fund. Every cent I put in I promise to give away to other Hedgers, sponcering projects that seem worthy of help and support. I gave examples of trying to live without this or that resource as other good examples, willing accepting limits is a chance to learn and be more free of dependency. Sometimes a limit can give you more resources if maintained, but even as an experiment it tells you what you are made of and if you can take a temper in the flames of burning away the excess of your life.

Water: The first three were essentially personal things. But the whole point of the Hedge is that I am running low of low hanging fruit of personal change in my life, and nearing limits in my capacity to individually secure myself in this trying world. I need help. The water element is simple, ask the Hedge for help. Maybe someone you know is hard off, ask for help. Maybe you are in toruble, ask for help. Maybe, just maybe, you ain't responding to a crisis, but are trying to do or learn something cool, or get better, or provide a service, trying but needful of help. Ask for help. So I did, I explained that to take my life where I want it to go I need allies, a group of people I can serve and count on to have my back, and that each of my listeners are already friends, but that I need more than amorphous friendships, I need a strong fellowship in my life. I need help realizing that. Please help me make this something that is self propelling, and that we can enthuastically say was worth the effort and the promotion, and the cash, and the driving around to meet up.

It worked, one lady who used to organize community gardens offered to help me draft the four elements logic into a hand out for people evaluating the presentations of others. A young fella I just meet volunteered to run a mailing list. Another friend offered to promote future events at her work. Two people shared contacts to try rehabilitating a house into a cheap place for farm laborers to winter. Three young ones looking for odd gigs got hooked up with some field hand wages. A guy presented a couple small business plans for providing local apple boxes to our recovering apple industry in county, and says he will draft a business plan of what it would take to build the boxes, what it would cost, what workers could earn. A couple folks offered to get ebikes, and I will true the spokes for them real good like. The guy running the mail list offered to reach out to schools about how to hook up with teens, maybe try to get them on bikes. I was given a lead or cement scraps for a landscaping project I am working on. A gal took my buddy to her rabbit farm because she wanted help dispatching some of them. A woman is painting a note book for the Hedge so we can keep notes in a really classy way, and might make signs for helping people find the meetings better. Going to do a music jam session with one dude later this month, and he volunteered a top tech sound system for any events we might need. Another man is planting a hedgerow of comfrey in his field to catch run off from his neighbors. And I got an offer for help going around to pick up flag stone for land scaping. AIso almost forgot the lady drafting the rubric for next month also has a grain mill it turns out and was handing out breads, it can also roll oats, so I miht need to visit her once my current oatmeal supply gets ate; I remember while presenting the Catabolic collapse theory she takes out her phone (tisk tisk) to look up 'Greer' and be all like "How have I not heard of this guy?" another friend of my who knows where my influences joked "I can only imagine where Ray's mind goes hearing that!".

So the school is started, and its simple as shale. Do stuff, study stuff, prune stuff, and ask for help. Once a month come and share what you got with a few fellow hedgers, check out what a few other people brought to share, give the best feed back you can manage. That's the system. If anybody who shows up got an idea about more structure that might serve the interests of the Hedge, present what make you think as much, or ask for help implementing it. Somebody is doing a mailing list, somebody is making a rubric for helping people have a guide line on giving presentations. Maybe down the road we will need more strucutre. Membership criteria, governance stuff, benefits, a treasury, honors for doing super fly projects, a Hedge witch, oaths, other blasted things; I don't need to know yet, we have enough to flail around for a few months, and the places for such things to germinate.

lathechuck's picture

It's been over a year since the last post on this thread, and I'd like to hear what's happened since that first flush of enthusiasm which often comes with a new project. Did the pandemic kill it, or force it into dormancy? What have you learned in the last 15 months?