The course will be led by Andy Goldring Andy has been thinking about and practising permaculture design since his first design course in 1993. He has used permaculture in many different contexts and with lots of different groups. After training he helped with permaculture projects in Leeds, community projects and private home/gardens, and national projects as a volunteer with the Permaculture Association. For the last 16 years he has been the Chief Executive of the Permaculture Association, which gives him a good overview of permaculture in Britain and around the world. Andy’s main body of permaculture work in recent years has focused on the organisational design of the Association itself and its many and far reaching projects. Recent projects include a collaborative eco-farming project, the £57 million Local Food Fund, the new Diploma system, the 12th International Permaculture Convergence and the Next Big Step project which is looking to enhance the coherence and effectiveness of the international permaculture network. Andy has a wealth of facilitation experience, using a wide variety of techniques such as open space technology, mind-mapping and Edward De Bono's thinking tools. Andy has been teaching permaculture since 1995, and has been involved in many design courses and numerous introductory and specialist trainings since. He has been lead tutor on at least 20 design courses, including the last nine years’ of Leeds PDCs, co-tutor on the 2009 Earth Activist Training course with Starhawk, and six Permaculture Educators' Courses in Denmark since 2010. He has contributed to many books and magazines and was the editor of ‘Permaculture – a teachers’ guide’. Over the last 15 years, he has also been using permaculture design methods in retro-fitting and adapting his house to be energy efficient and productive, a job which he never seems to quite manage to finish...
