Subject: Middleses University PCS

From: Myk Rushton <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 17:06:57 GMT

Middlesex University Permaculture Society (PCS) UK

Hello All

Firstly thanks to all of you who replied directly to [email-masked]
I hope I have replied to you all personally but if I've miss anyone I'm
sorry. It was not intentional. I've set the Reply-To: header to 
[email-masked] this time because I feel that some of the
comments sent to me could have been useful to others espeacially the
encouragement and advice. I've also set up a new mailbox at the following
address to send permaculture related mail:

[email-masked]

If you could use this address I'd be grateful, it will help me keep archives
as well as know what the posts related to. Thanks.

My last post gave a brief out line of the society, the problem we're having
with red tape and our intial plans for the site. This time I'd like some
feedback in a more specific area and find out if anybody else has got/had
similar problems and how they have dealt/are dealing with them.

To put my problem in a nut shell Middlesex University has no other society
that is concerned with "environmental" issues. The PCS is been seen as the 
forum to bring these issues to, which I suppose is good, but at the moment
its all coming directly to me as the pioneer of the society and I'm not
really sure how to deal with it. (Neither do I have the experience.) And
basically it's getting a bit much.  
It all seems to be taking of to fast and encompassing to many issues and
all before the original members have had a chance to get there hands in the
soil. (In fact as I said in some of the personal replies I sent out, the
original interest in *permaculture* is beging to wane, held back by the red
tape and swamped by the other ideas and issues.

Carl Smith the chairman of the Permaculture Association of GB feels that it
is an inadequacy of the university and that an Enviromental Forum (ENVF)
should be set up to deal with these new issues, he also said that it should
perhaps be formed by the paid student faculty as part of there service to
students.

As an additional note we have been asked to support the applicants for
next years student union faculty - 4 out of the 5 applicants are environ-
mental students and there mission statement is that they want to turn the
campus into a centre of environmental excellence. So it would obviously be
a good place for them to start by forming the afore mentioned forum. I'll be
putting it to two of them who are members of the PCS at are next meeting on
wednesday 24 Jan.

Other sugestions have been to divide the society up into groups each with
it's own area of concern. i.e.

A group for those who wish to start composting all the campus leaf debry
instead of it been collected by the local council and taken of site.
Were situated in a wooded park land and there's *lots* of leaves to much
for are small garden.

A pressure group for those who wish to change the way that the university
uses it's resources, like campaigning for doublesided photocopiers and for 
a change of policy on the use of polystyrene cups in the snack bars.

A group for those who really do want to practice *permaculture* and learn 
more about it's principles and applications

The above are just a few examples of the areas that the society seems to be
becoming involved in.

May be I'm at an advantage by forming a permaculture society on a campus
that has all the Life Sciences, Environmental Sciences etc. But it seems
at the moment that I've started something thats I can't deal with!

It has been suggested that it is a PCS and should not be dealing with 
these issues in the first place!

So any suggestions or comments?
-- 

   Myk Rushton-MSU Permaculture Society: [email-masked]