on a very sunny day in november we payed a visit to the Magdalen Project in south England. It is a sort of a practical living experience environment centre or environment education centre, some of that or between. It used to be an community but nowadays its run by a group of people that are employed instead of in community. A few people live on the grounds their but most of the 14 employes come from nearby villages.

The location feels very positve to us and even though there is no community present the place feels very good. The grounds are well maintained and the buildings have gone over some intensive refurbishment and look very good. It seems to me that this place is rocking!
The garden shows a very interesting mix of education and pieces of art that are made in the workshops. Although I havent seen a vegatable garden as in other places the setup of the whole area looks very nice. Inside the rooms are in good shape and for once we havent seen old matrasses and cheap beds.

During the year you can take part in a number of workshops and activities. The centre doenst just aim at guest who come for a workshop. Its becoming or is a link in the local network of farmers and schools. In the workshops the people are ever changing the centre, the paths in the garden have been put in by schoolchildren and the composttoitle aswell. Funding has been arranged to achieve their goals and the whole thing just amazes us. We have a feeling we like the way the centre is run, it all seems to work!

The place used to be an intensivly used farm. With the money some people put its been transformed into what we see today. The people who live here still hold a feeling of a community around them; they still work together in the garden on mondays (even the chef and the bookkeeper). A very nice concept which I think can be adepted to different circumstances around the world, why not have this in Holland?