Camp #1 Funding Proposal and Budget

@johndennisliu wants to build as much stuff as possible. Consequently, I beleive we need to think about what we need to accommodate the camp builders as a first step. Once we have identified the resources needed for the builders, we can figure out how much we have left to scale up to 50 persons. Does that seem reasonable to everyone? @johndennisliu ?
If that is are starting point, we probably need to buy enough yurts for the builders, 1? 2? or 3?

@johndennisliu Does it seem reasonable to purchase yurts for capacity of 12 builders?
Building supplies for habitation for 38? We can budget for the construction of yurts for 38, or should we budget for a more substantial option? Should we budget materials to put the yurts on a platform?

Basic budget areas:
* START-UP HOUSING for camp-build team of up to 10 people;
* FURTHER HOUSING for up to total of 50 people;
* OTHER STRUCTURES (floors for housing, kitchen, work/study spaces, shade structures, walkways etc);
* SANITATION (compost toilets, showers, laundry etc);
* SITE VEHICLE (e.g. pick up truck);
* WATER SUPPLY (dig well if needed; pumps, plumbing etc)
* ENERGY SUPPLY (solar, biogas, fuel, firewood, electrics, etc)
* TOOLS & WORKSHOP (all tools and facilities necessary to build/maintain the camp)
* COMFORT (beds, other furniture, carpets, etc.)
* FOOD (budget for at least a few months food supply?)

START-UP HOUSING: We should be able to buy 6.7 meter yurts (accommodating 4-6 people each) for approx. 3,300 EUR per yurt. So, at most, the budget for PURCHASING start-up housing for the build-team would be approx. 10,000€. Can be less if we make simpler housing for the build team.

We need to get Daniel and Alfonso into this discussion. They are both on site!

I already have SITE VEHICLE e.g truck on my list ;) A suggestion of 10,000 EUR was floated as budget for this.

I would still like to know from other sources in the coop (e.g. @johndennisliu) the urgency of drafting this budget for Commonland. Do we have a target date for submitting it to them, or just "as soon as possible"? We will work more effectively here if we have a defined time period to reach some kind of conclusion on the budget. We can do more or less research on the details according to how long we have to prepare the draft.

My understanding is that the money is waiting for us, we just need to get it the proposal in.

Do you think it would be reasonable to assume we can build most housing structures ourselves (yurts, tipis, tents etc.) for around HALF the price (or maybe even less) that they can typically be bought?

That might be a quick way to budget costs for all the housing without needing to research costs of materials.

Dear Jeff / Kevin: Greetings. Your questions on the funding. It was available earlier but the squabbling in the Facebook page might scare the donors. I'm not as sure as I was about the funding now. We need to do this as cheaply as possible but we can't have unsafe or ugly living quarters. This first camp in Spain serves a couple of purposes. One is to allow training and direct action in regenerative agriculture and large-scale ecosystem restoration and the other is to serve as a benchmark for other camps to come. If we set the bar too low then people in camps could have difficult times in the future. If we get this right it sets a standard for the other camps to follow. I think that the cost of making the accommodations is mostly labor. If we calculate only the materials it is very cheap. If we calculate the retail costs we will never be able to restore the Earth. We need to see the middle way. The Tao.

I recommend that we make almost everything ourselves with the best tools and machines. We theoretically could buy a few starter dwellings ... these could be Yurts, could be tents, could be domes. But the majority we make after installing the shop.

Jeff: Urgency is less now. If we had had the proposal earlier it would have been a cinch to have received the grant. Now we need to explain about the naysayers on our own facebook site. But still the budget is needed.

@johndennisliu We can make things ourselves, but what about the team that is there to make things? We need to have enough of everything to get them started, right? We can't just push them out onto a barren landscape. Even if we buys yurts, it will take a few days to build platforms and set them up. We need lodging for 10, that is probably 3 yurts. We need 10 beds. We need to figure out something for sanitation and food service. in advance.

This is why I think we have to break this down into two parts. 1) Planning for the Camp Builders, which will require we buy some things. 2) Planning for the compete build out of the camp, which will mean building supplies.

Jeff posted a list of stuff above that we probably need for the Camp Builder site. Does this approach make sense to you?

Thanks John for your clarification. It's not great news to hear your doubts about the certiantly of the Commonland grant, but my understanding is that we should continue with cautious optimism that the grant will still be available if we get things right and can demonstrate that the cooperative is maturing and unifying in its sense of purpose. Hopefully the worst of the "naysaying" was just birthing pains and now or at least very soon we'll be moving forward with a much clearer sense of common purpose.

I porpose that we continue with a focus on drafting the budget proposal, but this should be informed by concrete and roughly costed design options. We can relax a bit the sense of urgency, but I think we do need a clear time frame to keep us focussed on a goal. Perhaps we should also think of it as a more generic budget, removing the specific focus on Commonland and the idea that it "should" be 100,000 EUR.

Instead, it should be a budget that covers all the areas necessary for a functioning camp for 50 people, minimising all costs where possible through self-building instead of buying pre-made structures, while designing for the highest reasonable standard of comfort and appearance, which John describes as a critical success factor to "serve as the benchmark for other camps to come." The budget total will be whatever it needs to be.

Kevin, yes, we may to break this down into to parts 1) Planning for the Camp Builders, 2) Planning for the compete build out of the camp.

We can prioritise (1), aiming to come to some provisional decisions about design and a shopping list and reaching a budget for this first phase. Knowing that the "urgency" around Commonland is somewhat relaxed now, can we make a provisonal target date for when we want to have a draft plan and budget for (1) agreed amongst ourselves, before presenting that to the wider coop for approval?

I'd suggest to make a traget for this around 10 days from now (e.g. by end of Sunday 4 Feb), to give us time to fully discuss the options and hopefully for most of the others in this group to have plenty of time for input to.

Meanwhile that shouldn't stop us from discussing and refining options for (2). A plan and budget for (2) should come fairly hot on the heels of that for (1), as the purpose of (1) is entirely to serve the manifestation of (2). We can partly use the budget of (1) as a template for (2), simply scaling up accomodation etc. from 10 people to 50, with reductions in costs resulting from self-building instead of buying, then adding the costs of additonal functions not present in (1) but that will be needed for (2).

John's background is not in fund raising. Just because the Commonland folks have cooled, that does not mean it is dead (unless John or someone else says it s dead). Right now, there is nothing there for them to be excited about, soon it will all look different. It does mean there is less pressure on us. That said, I think it would be wise for us to put something together for them to put in front of Commonland in the next few weeks. Everything is going to look a LOT different in a few weeks. I think we would be remiss if we didn't at least take a shot at it. Since it is just a proposal, since there is going to be a ton of savings building our own stuff, the Commonland Budget can be very rough. .......... waiting on feedback from @johndennisliu on this approach.

Are you saying that the grant is now not available? :(

RE Raw / SawnTimber supply (for constructing accommodation/other structures for 50-60 persons):

Regina posted a list of timber suppliers in the Murcia area. This is now in Google Docs folder here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14Ywzavcr_RrWZ-Tt4yxj1-Jl0W2bIvAnnO_V5CbMTQo/edit

Can a Spanish speaker contact these guys for sawn timber prices per cubic meter/foot?
They may ask for a cutting list, but at present we do not have this information, until concensus is reached regarding the shelter design. We can still request the cubic meterage/footage price for comparison.

I have two contacts for timber supply, one in UK (Sustainable Woodland Services) and one in Germany (Bright Forestry). I have contacted for sawn timber prices per cubic meter/cubic foot delivered to Murcia area.

I made a concept video using Sketchup, based upon the site, 3200 sq M within the larger 5 Ha field, to accommodate 50-60 persons with communal and working space.

I hope this video gives people an idea of the size of 3200 sq M, and potentially the number of structures we are looking to create.

I didn't place any plants in the model and the layout is only conceptual - to communicate visually the area of 3200 sq M set within the 5 Ha allotted ERC space.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3EpfeEt_FM

This is the map we received from @danielhalsey00 designating 3200m2 for the camp site

@johndennisliu Is there a chance that we can go back to the Commonland folks? I can understand that they were frightened away by the cacophony on the Social Media channels. There is a lot of pent up energy there ready to be released. Everything is going to look a lot different in a few weeks. Unless you think the opportunity with Commonland is absolutely dead, I think we should put a Plan with a Budget in front of them and make our case. I think in a few weeks, they will be thrilled with what they see.

EVERYONE: John posted this in another thread.

I think it is critically important to have sufficient capability to fabricate in the camps.

The first reason for this is that the Spanish camp is a model and an experiment in both restoration and camp building. The vision is not to restore a small piece of the Spanish Altiplano but to train a growing group to restore the Earth. We will if successful build camps everywhere there are degraded landscapes. In many of these places there are no shops. We will need the ability to build and to repair our living environment and our tools.

The second reason is money. If we buy everything off the shelf we will pay vastly more than if we make it ourselves. A big Yurt will cost of from 5000 to 9000 Euros and then we will need additional for insulation, floors … etc. We can reduce the cost to around 1000 Euros plus labor.

Beyond the Yurts / Tipis / Domes we also need Kitchen Facilities, Green Houses, Toilets, Showers, Saunas, Boardwalks, Beds, Lockers, Bookshelves,

All of these require shop tools and fabrication.

This is our first requirement. We are not buying a camp we are building one.

The cost will be 1/10 the price if we build it. Plus we will learn all the ins and outs of camp building which will inform the camps to come. The people who train in camp building will be leaders in the future in building more camps.

May I add, this is a wholistic exercise, from discussion, visioning, funding, public engagement, communications, planning to implementation, refinement and so on, this is also the first of many, so we are all defining these processes for a very new kind of project, and working online with people from all over the world. We are doing well, even if it can feel slow/laborious process, this is all part of the learning.. once these pathways are defined the process will streamline..

I could not agree more. I know it is somewhat dispiriting to @johndennisliu that the process is messy and there is disagreement and friction. The disagreement and friction is the result of pent up energy without a clear outlet. It might not feel like a positive, but it is. I have been a part of many organizational efforts. There is truly something special emerging from all of this. It is actually quite remarkable. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Everyone is amazing!!!

@kevinpeterson n.b. I removed one of the suppliers from the thread title as this is included in the suppliers listings.

Dear Friends: The funding is still available but it is less enthusiastic because of the negativity on the public posts. I will be in Holland in 10 days and will follow up. If we can have a cogent plan it would be good and I believe that we can access the funding. I would suggest that we have a ZOOM to discuss this it is more efficient and more accurate.

I think a Zoom meeting is a great idea. I think we would benefit from setting an agenda for the discussion to make sure we cover the important issues. ...... don't worry, the pent up energy on Facebook will resolve itself soon ...... Everything is going to look completely different very soon.

@tomcatino1 Yes, we have been going over those start-up options for some time.

Kevin, could you set up another doodle poll to find a good time for a Zoom meeting during the next 4-5 days?

Yes, I can do that. I think next week sometime, unless we want to blend it into the GA over the weekend, or maybe that is too much. I will offer both,

I recommend that for the Camp builders we think about the Safari Tent idea which we can add wooden raised floors. Then we will be sufficiently housed while we work on the build the main part of the camp.

Giuseppe's question about an application form/format was a good prompt. I'm working on a proposal template (headings with a brief description of what kind of content should be under each heading). This would mean that the proposal would also contain some narrative text (project summary, description, goals, timeline etc) which we still need to create. I imagine this being about one page, then the actual budget table being the second page. Does @everyone and @johndennisliu think this is the right track? Or do Commanland just want a budget table with no accompanying narrative?

The grant proposal template that I suggest:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B54eU4Mcpu5fWVd3ZzBzWGwzdXM

@johndennisliu I just read your email reply to Kevin and the rest of us. That clarifies the major uncertainties for me. The main message I take from it is that we (in the Camp Org group) should continue making recommendations for the camp physical set-up, but these recommendations should be for the 'design' team (Alfonso, Daniel, Giuseppe, Jose) to choose from and put together into a grant proposal.