Newsletters

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Newsletter spring 2017

Hello everyone !

We are giving some news after a long hibernation that was not so quiet ! Sandrine and Roman were the guardian of the place for the winter and they had to face many surprises, some more pleasant than others with some floods, leaks, frozen tubes that exploded, dish washing with frozen water… but they also had the chance to witness some beautiful white landscape and to meet some foxes and other mammals who were looking for food !

Today, we are now all back and it is with a renewed enthusiasm that we invite you to participate to our great adventure.

This year, we will organise some participative workshops :

Each workshop happens during a weekend but you can come if you wish for the whole week. We share the food between each other, you can stay in the house depending on the available places or throw your tent. Dont forget to have a look at our website for more infos about that : https://www.eotopia.org/wordpress/en/visit-us/
If you are interested by a workshop, please write us to contact@eotopia.org

From the 6th to the 8th of May : Gardening workshop

We are no experts in permaculture but thrived and passionate. If you want to learn to cultivate without using pesticides or any other products or share your own experience, you are welcome !
If it rains : isolation with the GREB method and/or construction of furnitures with palets.

From the 25th to the 28th of May : Palet workshop

Come to help us build a henhouse so we can save chicken and/or build other stuff with palets.
If it rains : Isolation with the GREB method.

From the 3rd to the 5th of June : Mud and bambou workshop

Come to build a geodesic dome with bambous and mud.
If it rains : Isolation with the GREB method and/or of a washing machine bike.

Other workshops will be held during summer, about the building of a tiny house, a bread oven or a washing machine bike. And if you want to propose/animate a workshop, please contact us !

Of course, Eotopia remains open for regular visits, whether your just wish to give a hand or to come live with us.

In the meantime, here the latest photos : Album facebook

We wish you a great spring !

The Eotopia family

PS : We are looking for a gazole car with 5 places to make it run with recycled oil and be able to come pick up the visitors without polluting too much ! Let us know !

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Fall news of Eotopia

Newsletter of December 2016, January and February 2017

eoDear everyone,

After a sunny and bright beginning to autumn where we have fully enjoyed the wonders of our garden, we have now been seriously freshened up by the first winter winds! The outdoors work hasn’t diminished in intensity, especially with the clearing and brush cutting of the future living areas… We are spending a good amount of our time around a wood stove we found in the barn.

Nights are cold and we are discovering or rediscovering the happiness of sleeping in 10 degress or less under a nice pile of blankets.

Numerous visitors came to give a hand, some just to help out on the different work and others to experiment with the possibility of joining the family. Beautiful encounters, great shared moments in music or silence, delicious meals, various and surprising, a lot of concrete progress: the garden becoming bigger and bigger with the preparation of «buttes» for the next year, the isolation of certain parts of the house with straw and sawdust, clearing of different areas, planning of a Tiny House, installation of a caravan for Lucy and many other things.

In the middle of November we are still receiving some visitors before closing the doors for winter. Many reasons for that: with the cold and the rain, the interior space becomes quite small and community life more challenging, some members are leaving for the winter and others concentrate on the construction of the Tiny House (and get ready to organise a participative worksite next year).

We hope to open the doors again next spring, we will communicate the precise date in 2017! Until then, for the ones who really wish to join Eotopia, we invite you to re-think the pillars written in the website and take this time to experiment on your side. We realised that the people who correspond most with the project are the ones who, while reading the website find themselves saying things like: «Wow, this is exactly what I wanted to do» or «I found my tribe!».

Talking about the website, you might already know we got hacked a month ago… we have now recovered the website but we are missing some parts which we will be working on as soon as possible.

During a reunion we had, we took the chance to express our feelings about the four and a half months spent on the site and we can say that if difficulties exist and that community life is challenging at times, we are globally very happy and very grateful towards these experiences. What comes out strongly as well is the trust we all share about this project. Adding to that, the positive feelings of the majority of the people who came to visit (25 in total), it looks like our little utopia has some beautiful days ahead of her!

To get impregnated by our story, here are some pictures : Facebook album

Lot of gratitude for all the ones who came to help us and all the others who support us from a distance!

Lots of love for you all, great hibernation and see you next year!

The Eotopia Family

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Newsletter august-september-october 2016

14344740_1053676564745714_5201611956101243734_nEotopia open its door !

Hello to you all !

Summer is coming to an end, dragonflies still abound above our heads and the mosquitoes have almost disappeard ; as it was our main problem during the last weeks, we can now fully enjopy our little paradise. Life explode with the

We still buy most of our food… and we have to do 70 kilometers in total each Friday to get to the organic store. Whether it is for food autonomy or gift economy, we got to be patient, but we are on our way !

Moreover the garden starts giving its fruits and greens of all kinds, tomatoes, spinach, “tétragone”, cucumber, etc… With the knettles and other wild plants, our beautiful dishes become more and more local !

Since the 16 of august, Eotopia started opening its doors : a small dozen of persons came to discover the place. For our greater joy, some are already motivated to join the group on the long run.

Many of you want to come and it gives us a lot of joy receiving your email and seeing your enthusiasm. We are often refusing to let you come but, as we wrote before, if we would love to open the place to everyone, we are for now just looking for potential members to consolidate our young group and, if possible, participate to the buying of the shares to equilibrate the investment of everyone(two members bought 4 and 5 shares of 5000 euros each).

We got a lot of work ahead of us, we spend a little money for the food, electricity, gas and some others things and we try to be patient in our way towards a full gift economy. The garden is getting bigger week after week, solutions reveal, ideas sparkle. We are confident that together we will find the way to diminish our impact at a minimum, harmonize our presence with the one of other beings and bring more peace and joy in this world !

Here a little photo album to replace the words and show how we are doing : album facebook

Lots of gratitude for all your kind messages, your support and offers. Those helps us confirm our project is useful and that Eotopia will last !

Love and gratitude,

The Eotopia family

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Newsletter July 2016

dsc00987Dear friends !

Welcome in the pulsating and hectic adventures of Eotopia !

  As soon as we arrived on the land, we got strike by the priorities, not to say the emergencies. And of course, they were not what we could have imagined. And of course, they reveal as new challenges for Eotopia, and particularly for its vegan philosophy.

The house, abandoned for a few years and literally buried under rubbish was occupied by various families of rats and surrounded by an amazionan environment where swarm all kinds of snales and slugs, ticks and mosquitos. We wanted some nature, we got it !

You’ll guess that we have never thought of eradicating all those little beings… However we decided to organize a big clean up of the area:

  • Clearing the house and the land, forcing the rats to go away…
  • Sweeping, sweeping, sweeping, cleaning and cleaning ;
  • Loan of the weed whacker of a neighbor to cut the high grasses and ward away the armies of mosquitoes ! After, we’ll use only hand tools and scythes;
  • Installation of mosquito nets and use of natural repulsive products;
  • The cats are covered with floral water of lavender to help them deal with tiques and mosquitos;
  • A shaman friend communicated with the rats (and they seemed full of wisdom) ;
  • Purification of the house with burned salvia;
  • Daily meditation on love and compassion !…

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On parallel of the clean up, we start different worksites :

  • Permacultural garden and composting
  • Building of the dry toilets, the rocket stove and a solar oven
  • Fixing up the kitchen with crates
  • Walls whitewashed to install the Ada-Yazmin and Benjamin family
  • Plot of land arranged to install the caravan of Sandrine
  • Clearing the attics and multiples “round trips” to the waste center

We also decided to set up a daily reunion which goes as follow : Sharing our emotions, meditation on compassion and a final “Om” to vibrate together.

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The idea to save animals by adopting them is still a tenacious will but we decided to postponed it until we can fully clean up the land.

We also wish to save an apple tree from the misletoe, build a solar shower, a brick oven, a mechanical wash machine (with a bike), etc.

All of those challenges make our adventure look like an initiation trip and we are all passionate about it. We have tasted our first harvest of the year and in the evening; we can contemplate the beautiful dances of the red, blue or golden dragonflies, the flight of the storks above us, the sweet songs of the birds around and the croaking of the frogs! All of that sounds like happiness!

If you also want to experiment with peaceful ways to live, in harmony with all other beings, take part in our construction or gardening, and spend some nice sharing moments together, contact us !

For now, as you may have understood, the house and the land are not so suitable for visits, we still have a lot to do to make it nice and comfortable. On top of that, we still need some time to strengthen our little group. But soon, from the 15th of August, you’ll be welcome! We will receive you with an immense joy !

With all our love,

The Eotopia Family

PS : We are not so connected to the internet these days… sorry for the late replies !

 

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Newsletter april – may 2016

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Dear Friends !

Goooood morning/afternoon/evening !

If the month of March was, at least for Eotopia, the month of looking out for a land and intensive visit sessions, leaving us very few moment to check on the website, April open on a very bright sky… which means a newsletter full of [excellent] news ! Check for yourself :

– our little team keeps growing with the joyful arrival of Valène, Julien, Naomie, Ramsès and Oscare !

– on thursday the 7th of April, we have signed an agreement with the owner of a property ! Eotopia should finally get started around mid-july in Saone-et-Loire, in center France. But chhhhut… don’t spread the word yet, previous drawbacks being, we prefer to not tell much more for now… and give you just some pictures !

– the website is growing as well with :

> a “Our history” page to answer the numerous questions about it. It is still in French… help welcome to translate it !

> a charter (in English, yeah !)

> a page dedicated to the creation of the association with the status. Here again… in French ! Sorry for that… we’ll translate it as soon as possible…

Gratitude for your kind messages, your interest and your motivation ! This gives us wings !

See you soon !

The Eo family !

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Newsletter february 2016

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Dear brothers and sisters!

First of all, thank you for your messages of support and all the energy it gives us!

Last time, we talked about the farm of Antoine which looked perfect for Eotopia considering its size and its location. After some weeks spent there, here some news.

We have gather some information – hidden by the farmer – about the juridical situation of the farm and the farmer and unfortunately, this situation makes it almost impossible to create an association with him or just settle there.

We are then landless again and looking for a new hope for Eotopia… With a twist : after some years trying to find a land for free and where we were facing each time an insoluble problem with the owner (relational, conceptual, juridical), we decided to also look for lands to buy so we can finally settle down and realize our dream. This decision was not easy to take but it seems to be the only way to finally get going.

newsFevrier2016-2On the other side, the time spent these last months organizing the place, cultivating the land, cooking delicious vegan meals gave us lot of joy and we learnt a lot. The adventure continues now with searching for the right place.

We also welcome Roman who – after spending some time with us – decided to join the group. He is becoming the treasurer of the association we are creating to ensure a legal frame for Eotopia.

Others people are interested. We will organize a reunion a soon as possible.

If you wish to help us finding a land, you can send us your suggestion at : eotopia@gmail.com
We look for a land with a construction permit (or a ruin/barns) with a land of a minimum of 2 hectares.

Thank you for your support, for keeping the spirit alive !

We wish you a lot of happiness !

The eotopians

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Newsletter january 2016

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Dear Brothers and Sisters !

Some news after a long period of silence to start this beautiful new year !

First, a fresh and changed website to start a new chapter in the Eotopia project. You are always many to write us and register on the website, which gives us hope and push us to keep dreaming !

And sometimes, the dreams which are persistent enough become reality…

After two years of looking for a place, trying our luck in different parts of France, met a lot of people, experimented and learnt a lot, opened ourselves to the idea of buying a land, we finally found a great farm where we can settle as soon as we want !

Finally, Eotopia becomes not only a dream, an idea, but a concrete place !
newsJanvier2016-2A wonderful farmer, Antoine, offers us his farm which he called “the farm of the future generations”. This great place is situated in the region called “Pyrénées Atlantiques”, twenty minutes from Pau and thirty minutes from Lourdes. There is a house where we can live, a big barn of 300 m2, 12 hectares, a river and animals we get the chance to save from the slaughterhouse ! A new challenge for Eotopia, there are about 30 cows (ancient race) and sheeps.

It is located in a fertile area and it is very accessible, by bus or by train, an ideal place to organize our events, workshops and other free and vegan camps !

We trust this will be the right place, but since it is not the first time such an opportunity is offered to us, we will “try” the place before to officially launch the project.

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For that, we established a small group of five persons to open the place and start the project. Of course, the doors are open to anyone willing to commit with the dream and help us make it real ! If you are interested in, please read on the pillars of the project. If it feels like you’ve written it yourself, please contact us !!!

We plan on installing ourselves from February and start the activities in late spring ! Then, the place will be open as well for visits and events.

But before that, some priorities :

  • define a legal structure to secure the project
  • install / reinstall the electricity (help welcome !)
  • install a heater system and a shower
  • plant trees, start the garden
  • plan the place according to permaculture.
  • Find refuges for some of the animals and how to keep some with us
  • find the way to cover some expenses due to the administration of the place and the compulsory taxes/insurances

If you wish to help us with these steps, whether it is to take part seriously in the adventure or just to give a hand, please write us !

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The “german” team of Eotopia decided as well to settle but finally in South Germany with a new project which shares similarities with Eotopia. The Fellmer family has relocated to a small town, where the Hughes family together with Jonathan Lamp and Wiebke Aszmutat have been working on the G.A.N.Z. Initiative. Presently they live together as neighbors but as of next spring they will move together into a large, lovely home in downtown Kirchheim Teck (Baden-Württemburg). This will be the official start of the house project and will serve as the G.A.N.Z. headquarters.

G.A.N.Z. (Gemeinsam Aktiv und Nachhaltig in der Zukunft, or “Together Active and Sustainable for the Future”) is an umbrella initiative embodying the same principles at the core of Eotopia but with a different manifestation. Instead of a large eco-village, they will begin as ten people in a big house, living in the most sustainable way possible while organizing events to generate awareness and action in the community. The core message is how to live sustainably by reducing consumption and sharing and saving existing resources.

With this two places, the dream is closer than never and we are so happy to finally start !

Thank you all for your support, kind words and messages all through those years and we hope to see you soon at the farm of the future generations ! And we wish you great adventures and a lot of happiness for this new year !

Be happy and well,

The Eotopia family

“live simply so others can simply live”

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New website !

Here the new website of Eotopia. A little reshaping was necessary. As a matter of fact, if the project remains faithful to its original values – veganism, gift economy, free education, personal growth – it also evolves !

It’s a beta version ; your comments are welcome.
The opening of an personal space for participants is programmed, as well as the creation of an “online university of knowledge, but for now, we have down to earth priorities !

Have a good time !

The Eotopia Family

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