What is the UK Permaculture Podcast, and why do we need it?

The podcast has demonstrated its value to the permaculture community over the first year of its existence. The seed has sprouted, and now the young plant requires valiant support from it’s soil community to grow, and provide tangible value to all involved.

The aims of the podcast are to aid the Permaculture Association in popularising permaculture in the UK, to raise the profile of amazing UK practitioners worldwide, and to provide blueprints to individuals outside of permaculture looking to start their own regenerative ventures.

Imagine what would happen if green roofs were the norm, if flowing water connected terraced gardens, and people were connected in their communities. What if all farms were multi-level, diverse, and free of chemicals. Permaculture offers all of these solutions as we know, but to achieve that, it requires a critical mass of about 18% of the society. This is a very opportune time to strive for that goal, as a large part of the society is aware of the damage our consumption has done to the environment, and what threat that poses to our survival.

The Permaculture Magazine has valiantly been on the front of that education for a couple decades, providing education through paper and now online means. The Transition Towns movement which came about from a PDC works to recreate our towns and cities. Food forests, agroforestry, silvopastures; all tools that permaculture adopted early on, are beginning to be used on scale in our food production.

We have conferences, festivals, but until now we’ve not had a loud voice, and this podcast fills that gap.

That voice now needs a loudspeaker, to help filter further into the society, and presents the opportunity to open it up to friends with skills that are needed to develop it further.

The bare minimum skills needed for stage two

Just to run the podcast, the skills needed were:

• listening, asking engaging questions, and focus during the chat.
• knowledge and use of basic recording equipment and software
• knowledge and use of basic editing software
• knowledge and use of hosting services for the audio files, and of WordPress as the home for the posts
• travel to events, networking, and in field recording.
• basic use of social media for sharing

To further develop the podcast, the following skills have been identified, that the podcast creator identified as lacking in himself (Daniel):

• growth marketing – however you approach it, we need an acceleration in growing the number of people we reach, if we are to achieve the needed society tipping point.
• business developer – any venture requires human energy, and that needs fuel. To grow the podcast, time needs to be spent, and for most of us, it’s not free. Every tree needs nutrients, and your responsibility will be to provide it to our growing tree.

Ideally two or more people are sought to help fill the above gaps in skills. Two are minimum, and as this is being opened up as a cooperative, we have the opportunity to leverage the time available from bringing more people to the team in the outset, to speed up getting to critical mass needed to make this venture financially self-sustaining.

Who should apply?

This post is ideal for entrepreneurial minded persons (as we all are in permaculture). This is still an early stage venture, and since we’re not seeking outside capital, we will be investing our time free of charge. You will be co-creating the constitution of the cooperative, and part owning it with others. If you already know what worker coops are, and would like to be part of one, this could be ideal. If you don’t yet know what these are, go to https://www.uk.coop/ and read up on the benefits and responsibilities involved.

It would be ideal for anyone who has relevant experience, and spare time, and the desire to develop a side business, but lacked something in order to do it completely on their own. With a team of like minded individuals, you can feel confident, that your skills will compliment those of the others, and together we will develop its full potential.

You can be anywhere in the world, although if you are in the UK, it would be more relevant to you, and we could at least meet from time to time. Otherwise we would use skype, and/or other relevant telecommuting tools to talk and make decisions.

What do you get?

In terms of immediate gains, there is no money, no salary, no company car, etc to talk about at the outset, but doors will open, and you will gain access to anyone and everyone you wished to speak to by the means of being part of a “media organisation”.

Costs will be shared, but at the moment they are so limited, that I’ve been bearing them myself, and small extras have been provided by the amazing community of listeners.

The role of the business developer will be to bring those funds that will support in the first instance the costs needed to create content, and grow the listenership. Once these are covered, our time will begin to be rewarded, creating breathing space in our budgets. Once that happens, we will work towards fully substituting our current income with the podcast. As the cooperative grows, and starts producing a surplus above its needs, and ours, we will decide what we’ll do with it.

How to apply?

Drop me a line using this form:

What next?

We’ll have a chat, and together decide what we’ll do next.

Thank you for your time, and I invite you to cooperate in a one of a kind regenerative venture, that will open doors, and create lasting change for the better!