A reflection on Collectivity.

On Friday 19th June after 21 exceptional days of support The Eroles Project celebrated CROWDFUNDING SUCCESS!!!!! Hurrah!!! Wholehearted gratitude to all of you. Thank you for supporting, sharing, commenting and following our campaign. We are overwhelmed by receiving support from over 70 pl edgers, meaning that we not only reached but exceeded our target raising £6750 / 9492€!!!!
I’ve have a deep appreciation for the collectivity brought about by the crowdfunding process and ironically am now grateful for not being successful in securing external funding earlier in the year. Crowdfunding has meant the project could grow in line with its core values: collaboration, co-creation and participation. And we’ve found that through promoting the campaign we’ve also been able to share an ideology and create a network.
We’ve been contacted by the founder of Sociolution who are interested in offering The Eroles Project gift economy web support, we’ve had a wonderful gentleman in the US asking if there is an option to donate ongoing support for the next 6 months to help us mobilise towards the UN Climate talks (COP21) in Paris this December, we’ve been offered London-grown, community-made wine to take as an action to the streets of Paris “vin la resistance”…. !!
On the project front we’re into our second week of the collaborative ‘live’ experiment. There are 8 of us here, including a family. The house has been transformed by the energy of many hands. Each day we play with the joys and challenges of living in community. We meditate together in the morning and dive into creative tasks in the afternoons. There is so much rich learning but I will leave the details to Lara (one of the current participants) to capture in the next blog.
In other news:
A few days ago we had a blockage in our sewage pipes (future participants – no flushing loo paper!!!). I knocked on the door of a previously unknown neighbour stumbling in Spanish and miming the problem. I was asking for a plumber’s number, but he instead very willingly came over to look. Five hours, four additional neighbours, and many meters of digging later, we and the neighbours stood outside our house laughing and determined to work together to solve the blockage. I have never experienced this level of community care and gracious collaboration. Moments later, with one very good guess with the pickaxe, the pipe we’d been digging to find split and Guillem and Sege got sprayed with toilet paper and our poo! I have never felt so embarrassed.
I wouldn’t recommend this as a community bonding exercise. But it’s certainly an activity that’s enabled us to experience the villagers community spirit.
A culture of open-hearted generosity has been founded here in the house. We hope to share this with each new participant who arrives and that they in turn find their own ways to continue this depth of appreciation and sharing.

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