It was such a delight to chat with Alex about our collective ‘autobiography’, how rewarding to hear his amazement that the website already features over 1,400 articles contributed by community members – past and present – from around the world. We talked about what the site offers, the story behind its creation, and how you can get involved.

At the end we have added a synopsis of the conversation for you to read if you so wish.

Our Findhorn Barrel is a podcast series started by Alex Wright and Callum Bell in February 2023. Click here for a list of other podcasts in the series.

Celebrating One Incredible Family: Weaving a Living History From Fire and Friendship

On a warm May afternoon in 2025, Cornelia sat in a sunlit room, the door slightly ajar to let in a breeze. The house was quiet, but her words carried the pulse of a much larger, vibrant community — one that had lived through fires, lockdowns, and profound change, and responded not with retreat, but with a collective act of storytelling.

The website Celebrating One Incredible Family wasn’t born of celebration, but of crisis. In the aftermath of a devastating fire that razed the beloved Community Centre building and Sanctuary — heart-spaces of the long-standing Park Ecovillage spiritual community — Cornelia, alongside Liza and Leona, met at the Phoenix Cafë. The world was just beginning to emerge from lockdown. Redundancies had strained our social fabric, the community had no guests, and its spiritual and physical centre was lost. “What are we going to do?” they asked each other.

The answer came not as a plan, but as a shared instinct. “There was this moment of group attunement,” Cornelia recalls, “sitting in that café. We all knew — we had to tell our story. We needed to honour this place and each other.” What began as a proposal to commemorate the Community’s 60th birthday soon became a much larger project: a living, breathing archive of the people who had shaped — and been shaped by — this extraordinary place. The goal wasn’t nostalgia. It was healing.

“We didn’t set out to make a website,” Cornelia says. “We set out to tell the stories.”

A Platform for the Collective Autobiography

From the outset, storytelling was at the heart of the initiative. Contributors were encouraged to share their personal journey — how they came to the Community, what they experienced, and how it shaped them. But over time, the project evolved beyond individual memoirs.

The term ‘collective autobiography’ emerged — a phrase that stuck. “I think it was Katherine Collis who said, ‘Becoming 60 — that’s when you write your autobiography.’ It resonated,” Cornelia notes. The site began to embrace more than just reminiscence. It became an ongoing record — of past, present, and what was still becoming.

The original slogan of the website captured this spirit: ‘As we honour the past, we meet in the present, and together we step into the future’.

What started as a means to process loss has grown into a robust community resource. Today, the site features over 400 individuals — past and present members of the community, as well as people with long-standing relationships to it.

A Photo Board Without Hierarchy

The website is split into two main sections: “Our Stories” and “People.” Members of One Incredible Family can register themselves, create a profile, and contribute their stories and photos. Even posthumous profiles are crafted — with permission — to honour those who played a role and have since passed on.

The “People” gallery page resembles a digital photo board, a conscious echo of those found in community in the past. “We said, ‘We want that,’” Cornelia recalls. “So we made it random. No hierarchy — a true expression that everyone matters.”

Behind the scenes, a team of volunteers keeps the project running, with regular Zoom meetings and an evolving editorial process. Their roles are fluid, guided by individual strengths and availability. Long-time contributors like Keith Armstrong, who worked on the community archive for years, are active from afar, while newer members — like Suzanne in Derbyshire — add fresh energy with weekly content like “Saturday Snippets” and “Midweek Musings” – and much more.

Curating a Rabbit Warren of Content

As the content ballooned, so did the challenge of navigation. “It’s a rabbit warren,” Cornelia laughs. Though the homepage offers curated sections like “Most Recent Stories” and “Topics,” many users rely on a Google search to find what they’re looking for. A “New Additions” page, updated in sections of about 6 weeks, helps highlight recent content and gives a chronological contents list of the website.

While the site is content-rich, not everything goes live immediately. “Some stories are sent in and posted quickly,” Cornelia explains. “Others — like ebooks — take months, with formatting, permissions, and image quality all needing attention.”

Contributions are welcome from anyone with a strong connection to the community. The guidelines are simple: share your story, but do so with care. “We ask people to avoid finger-pointing. If a name comes up in a problematic way, we ask for a reframing.”

An Independent Effort, With Organisational Backing

Though the site operates largely on volunteer power, it has institutional roots. The NFA (New Findhorn Association) owns the site, with support from the Findhorn Foundation as was, and PET (Park Ecovillage Trust). All three logos appear at the bottom of each page, a quiet nod to the collaborative spirit behind it.

And what of the future?

More stories, more people, more voices. “We’re building a sort of Wikipedia for this place,” Cornelia says — a living tapestry of interlinked memories and milestones.

Though the team has no immediate plans to produce a printed book, the idea of a coffee table edition lingers as a dream — one awaiting the right hands and resources.

For now, they continue — quietly, consistently — welcoming every new profile, every shared photograph, every act of remembering. “History starts today,” Cornelia says.
And indeed, it does.

***

We want to acknowledge all the present members of the COIF Core Team:

Cornelia Featherstone, Liza Hollingshead, Leona Graham, Keith Armstrong, Suzanne Farmer, Janet Shaw, Richard Elen, Susan Hall and and Sylvia Robertson. You can read more under About this website, as it takes a village to tell its history.