What are Commons?
Since acquiring the Park in 1983, the commons in our community have been held and developed by the Findhorn Foundation. They have generously paid the public liability insurance and assigned teams such as Park Garden and Maintenance to take care of areas which are used widely by the whole community. They also own buildings used by the community at least as much as by FF staff e.g., the Youth Building, the Playhouse, the Living Machine, the Visitors Centre, the Sanctuaries and the CC.
The Park Ecovillage road 2022
Over twenty years ago Duneland also became the owner of various pieces of ‘common land’ and they continue to cover the costs of some of these on behalf of the community: e.g. the Dancing Green and the Diamond Wood.
Following the arson of the Main Sanctuary and Community Centre in 2021, our program for rebuilding has emphasised the critical need to look at long term strategies for more sustainable and equitable systems of ownership and responsibility in the Park.
The needs that are driving this are:
● Changes to FF focus and finances have led to an increased willingness to let others take on these responsibilities;
● The NFA Council has expressed their intention to facilitate grassroot engagement with the creation of a new Community Centre, and believe the community is ready to take on more responsibility for the facilities it is using;
● Need for improvement in the overseeing of infrastructure maintenance and for coordinated long-term planning of the general development of The Park.
● Once the development of North Whins is complete, Duneland may want to hand over all ownership and stewardship of the Commons within the Whins.
All this presents both challenges and opportunities for us as a community. A metaphor is that of parents who have held the space generously while the child (the community) develops and grows to maturity. Now it is time for the parents to hand the baton of daily responsibility to a body that has more energy and resources for it – the community.
How is this going to happen? What does it need from us in order to make the transition smooth and effective? The opportunity is for a greater sense of togetherness through engagement with loving care and responsibility as we rise to the opportunity of taking on the Commons.
Community Centre Garden 2021
What we need to learn about includes:
• Types of Commons: Infrastructure, Built Amenities, Green Amenity Space, Development Land, Conservation Area
• The History and Roles of the various Community Organisations
• Future Options for Community Ownership & Stewardship
ColCi Commons Subgroup
A subgroup of the Collaboration Circle was formed in April 2022 to continue the work started by DevCom to investigate the most appropriate ways of transferring ownership and stewardship of the Commons to The Park Ecovillage Findhorn community.
We have identified some practices and principles which any solutions should fulfil:
● Alignment: for any particular commons, there should be a logical alignment or congruence between:
○ those who use it
○ those who have influence on it (make decisions)
○ those who are responsible for it (take care of it)
○ those who finance it (pay for it)
● Governance: 8 underlying practices for successful commoning: creating clear agreements on the purpose of the Commons and how benefits, responsibilities and decision-making will be distributed including agreements and practices regarding the consequences of not adhering to the agreed behaviours.
We have identified that the various kinds of commons can be quite different in their nature and may therefore require different solutions. We have started exploring 4 possible solutions in some more depth:
• Roads, Pathways and Parking Space Infrastructure
• New Sanctuary
• New Community Benefit Society
• Merging Existing Organizations to create new Organizations
This is potentially a major turning point in the history of the community.
Below is a pdf of the background document for more in depth information.
Submitted on behalf of Collaboration Circle (ColCi) by Gordon McAlpine & Marilyn Hamilton.
Now semi-retired, interests are Music & Dance, Buddhism & Mindfulness, Conflict Reconciliation, Community Governance
Hi Gordon, you all have done a brilliant job in pulling together all this information and identifying the issues. The one thing that I find myself reacting to is the metaphor of the foundation as parent handing over to its now grown child.
It doesn’t seem quite right that you hand over the bits you don’t want and keep all the good stuff for yourself. As a model of how we pass things to future generations this sucks. I am not sure what a better metaphor is…but the gist would be to pass on custodianship of a package of stuff you value because you trust the next generation to take even better care, with more awareness.