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PatrickGibbs

I just spent 12 weeks in Argentina (where I lived for a year) spreading news of the Global Village Construction Set and the practice and potential of libre machinery, and asking what potential people and organizations saw in the GVCS and who wanted to participate.

As the message spread, I got an invitation to present the GVCS project at Ecovilla Gaia (Gaia Ecovillage), 120 km from the city of Buenos Aires. After a two hour presentation and conversation, they said they'd like to host a libre machinery training in the second half of 2012, with a focus on building a LifeTrac, and with the presence of a fabricator who has trained at Factor e Farm. So, this is an invitation to see what we can arrange, and who wants to collaborate on putting together the training course. I'm the main contact for the course at this point, especially for people in the USA and other places outside Latin America.

Here's the announcement of intention for the course, with me (Patrick Gibbs) and Gustavo Ramírez, co-founder of Ecovilla Gaia (3 minutes, subtitles in English and Spanish):
http://dotsub.com/view/ea3c68de-f9d6-4734-9225-743a02d1ef63

Here's the interview with me that Gustavo and others saw that introduced them to my presence in Argentina (22 minutes, subtitles in English and Spanish):
http://dotsub.com/view/15775ab7-08c4-4f73-b851-8a2fea5d68db

My email is patrick0 [at] riseup [dot] net (that's patrick zero @riseup.net) -- and I prefer to communicate via these forums as much as possible so that the organizing happens in plain view, rather than hidden in my email.

I realize that there are many steps between this idea and an course, and we want to go about this as collaboratively as possible, with the Factor e Farm crew, trained GVCS fabricators, and anyone else who wants to participate.

cheers,
Patrick

Mike_Apostol

Hi Patrick,

I know you want to keep this dialogue on the forums, but you should also send an e-mail to Marcin as well as he doesn't frequent these forums too often. I've gone ahead and forwarded this to him but would be good to set up a dialogue directly with him as well.

You can reach him at opensourceecology<at>gmail<dot>com

It sounds like a pretty great opportunity!

Cheers,

- Mike

PatrickGibbs

@Mike_Apostol , thanks for the tip, I've followed your suggestion and just sent Marcin an email.

PatrickGibbs

Last week I visited Creation Flame to meet up with James Slade, and he's interested in being the primary instructor for the course (see interview at http://vimeo/patrickgibbs/james20120610 ). Gustavo at Ecovilla Gaia has confidence that we can make the course work financially, and they would like to do it in September/October. Folks in the OSE Argentina conversation are interested in fabricating a LifeTrac, so the course may be part of a wider project -- their first face-to-face meeting as OSE Argentina is scheduled for June 30.

I'm pretty flexible with the shape of the course right now, and I'd like to put together an appropriate technology / agroecology / permaculture / distributed economy tour or convergence or something like that, to cross-pollinate with folks (including James) who show up for the LifeTrac fabrication. Also, there are enough folks with machine shops and skills in Argentina interested in GVCS that I imagine a GVCS fabrication cooperative business might emerge from this. This might become the first metric LifeTrac.

Please speak up if:
- you're interested in participating as an attendee, instructor, organizer, documenter, or some other way.
- you'd like to donate money, or have suggestions for grants or other donors, or have other ideas about how to funnel money into this. Flights to Argentina, in-country travel, and food will be the main costs for me and James. Transport will be the main cost for everyone else too. Ecovilla Gaia intends to cover the cost of parts and tools, though I'm sure they wouldn't reject donations for that too.
- you want to offer some other sort of support, such as external hard drives, cameras (remember, it's only free/libre/open if it's well-documented), intercultural gifts, supportive conversations with me and other organizers, or other.
- you want to act as a media partner, publicizing the course in your continent/country/region/website, distributing our documentation, and writing your own articles about it.
- you think I'm doing something ineffectively and have a suggestion,
- you're excited this is happening!

Here we come, Argentine GVCS!

~ Patrick

Scraplight

Please keep me in the loop. I'm currently in Buenos Aires. I was thinking about talking to the trade school... They have all the equipment and space that we need. Suggestions?

chasmarq

I am interested in this workshop- did it happen/ will it happen? I am in Merlo (SL), Arg. and know a number of people who would be interested in this idea.

nottern

Hey Patrick,
We are from Chile and could arrange somwthing too in some place in case you are willing to do the same here!

Feel free to contact me.
Regards,

Howdy, Stranger!

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