This article was previously published in One Earth Magazine Volume 5 Issue 3B June 1985

Weatherwise Homes was born in the ‘winter of our discontent’, 1979. It was an all-time low in the history of the Findhorn Foundation when community efforts to balance expenditure with income had failed for the third year in a row. We had reduced the food budget until ‘brussels sprouts and tatties’ became a dirty word and members were wearing three sweaters instead of turning on the electric heaters. Something had to be done!

At the time my husband Lyle [Schnadt] was a member of Core Group and involved with education, learning to present workshops and exploring the alternate side to his practical, focused nature. I was playing mother to our 18 month old son. After a particularly gruelling community meeting where the financial situation was outlined in explicit detail and the proposal was made to reduce members’ weekly allowances from £7 to £5, Lyle decided to go off allowance altogether. “I’m not prepared to cut back any further, ” he said. “I would rather find ways to create wealth. From now on I intend to manifest my own money.”

His second idea was to cut the community’s sky-rocketing energy bills by insulating our buildings. How to pay for the insulation? Start a business, of course, selling insulation and out of the profits, buy insulation for the community. Great idea! Lyle found a material of high insulation value that fit our ethical needs as well, being made from shredded newspapers, and looked for someone to carry out the idea.

Needless to say, the old formula came into play. If you have a good idea, do it yourself. Lyle, who can’t resist a challenge, took it on for ‘a year or two’. Had we known then what we know now, would we have started a business here, in the increasingly depressed economic climate of Britain, when Lyle’s heart was so firmly rooted in the USA? Fools rush in where angels fear to tread …

Under the umbrella of New Findhorn Directions, a limited liability company of the Foundation, and with a loan of £5,000 from a fellow community member, Weatherwise Homes was launched in January 1980. I, with my ineptitude for figures, took on the book-keeping and Lyle the selling, going from door to door night after night and advertising in local newspapers. During the day, with the help of another community member, he blew insulation into people’s homes.

I have to smile when I think of how it all began. Lyle’s office was on our front porch, sharing space with the Creche toddlers every morning. Cash books were spread out on our dining room table each night as I struggled to balance the figures. Thank goodness one of our early investments was a calculator!

Our first illusion was shattered after the first year in business: we had no profit to put back into the community. Weatherwise had gobbled it all up! We had, however. insulated most of the main community buildings and we weren’t costing the community anything for our keep – that was a help.

We managed to get a few large insulation contracts and employed several community members and local friends. The next step was to sell wood-burning stoves, an economical alternative to oil and electricity, and from there, to cut and supply wood to our customers.

All to the good – except that the wood business cost us more to run than it made, the initial spurt of loft insulation work slowed down and the wood stove business was very competitive.

Three years into the business, Lyle was thoroughly committed to energy conservation and had begun to explore solar heating. Our plans to return to the USA receded further into the background or rather, into the future. Another illusion shattered – that we could run a business for a couple of years and then move on.

Weatherwise had taken on a life of its own, absorbing all Lyle’s attention and time. When I compared our life to that of our friends in the community, I seriously wondered if it was worth it. Weekends didn’t exist for us as Saturday was the optimum day for selling. Other families were putting a high priority on balanced family life with shared child-care and housekeeping while we were descending, in my opinion, to the most traditional of roles: the man out at work day and night and the woman at home with the kids, cooking, cleaning, and providing the backup support system -‘holding the fort’. Ugh. I resisted my role with ferocity, separating myself from Weatherwise and Lyle’s creativity in the process. The little extra money we had was no comfort or incentive to me – none of our friends had money anyway and we didn’t need much to feel comfortable here. What besides money could make it worthwhile?

One Earth 5-3B Lyle Schnadt

Lyle checking a solar panel

It was the solar panels that did it. In a burst of creativity, Lyle designed a new solar panel with components from the USA, Sweden and Great Britain. After testing it on a friend’s caravan and comparing it with the commercial panel we had, he was euphoric. Our water was heated to 155 °F – with his design, it was 210°. It was boiling! Lyle’s enthusiasm was so infectious, I decided, “If you can’t beat ’em, might as well join ’em!”  From then on Lyle has had my unequivocal support.

The University of Cardiff’s tests confirmed our own: Lyle’s design was more effective than any panel on the market in Britain, possibly in Europe. We have since built and installed over 100 solar systems in northern Scotland and established a reputation as an honest company that can be relied on to get the job done and do it well. Of ten employees, only three of us are connected to the Foundation, the others are local residents. We are now expanding the manufacturing  side of the business and have had inquiries from as far afield as India and Saudi Arabia.

A YEAR ago we became independent from New Findhorn Directions, with NFD holding shares in the new company. A good step for us, it means taking even more responsibility for Weatherwise, gives us the satisfaction of building something together and offers long-term material advantages. Letting go of the protective umbrella of the Foundation’s backing has been a little like growing up and leaving home.

Our lifestyle has changed. Lyle and I are now ‘independent members’, supporting ourselves but maintaining a close link with the Foundation, and we have moved from community-owned accommodation to our own house in Findhorn village.

Being financially independent from the community means we have a larger income than members on weekly allowance (now £10). We are therefore more able to give which, for me, is more comfortable than always being on the receiving end. My personal commitment is to create a context in which members, especially those who have worked so hard over the years, receive a remuneration consistent with their efforts and commitment. While subsistence is a useful spiritual exercise in getting one’s values straight, I don’t believe it is essential as a permanent way of life. I feel that in some way we are setting a trend that will be beneficial to everyone in the community.

So although our involvement with the day-to-day running of the community has diminished, we still feel part of the evolving whole. Running a business has been like starting our own little community, based on the same principles but in a different form. It can be more stretching than working in the Foundation. Hours are longer, with little time for community meetings and celebrations: maintaining the cash flow, finding new work and trying to make a profit creates constant pressure. There is less emotional stress as all of us at Weatherwise are not intent on personal growth, but when interpersonal conflict does arise, we don’t have the shared assumptions or ground rules about taking personal responsibility that are integral to life in the community. Lyle and I can’t, and have no wish to, impose our philosophy of life on those who work with us. It has to come through who we are. We have to drop the jargon and come back to the basics of accepting everyone as they are and, by acknowledging their contribution, drawing out the best in everyone. That’s what God and spirituality is anyway, isn’t it?

Is Weatherwise a ‘new age’ business? If caring about people, doing a job as perfectly as you can or persevering with a difficult task is ‘new’, then the answer is yes. But before we can move into any ‘new business’ format, we first need to come to grips with ordinary business-accounting systems, making a profit, expanding. We’re learning to play it straight, then we’ll see about innovations!

We feel very much part of the Foundation’s developing ‘village’ and we are as connected to the Morayshire area as we are to the community and enjoy having a foot in both. We have given up the group experience where responsibility for the whole is shared equally: the luxury of discussion and reflection in community meetings; a central position in guiding and refining the direction of the Foundation.

But we have gained a great deal. We enjoy our independence, our easy, flexible relationship with the community and its members; we are engaged in the challenge of building a different community where the proof of the pudding is in our actions; and we are contributing to the growing consciousness of right livelihood on earth, where the use of natural, renewable energy resources is becoming increasingly part of the awareness of the average person in Scotland and abroad.

How did we get involved with all this? Because it seemed a good idea at the time. Weatherwise has proved to be the most stimulating, exciting, challenging undertaking of our lives, and becomes more so all the time.