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Brithdir Mawr CommunityA community of people |
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Brithdir Mawr CommunityA community of people |
We currently have space in the community for new members. As we range in age from 36-58 we have a preference for new members to be younger rather than older in order to balence the age profile, though this is in no way set in stone and we welcome all ages to come as volunteers.
We are a land based
community & are looking for people who'd be able to help
with the practical sides of community life; growing, fixing, maintaining
and building, with the skills and enthusiasm to get jobs done.
How to Apply:
When you first come to visit, as well as doing some work around the site and exploring you should get the opportunity to eat together with everyone at one or more communal meals, and a chance to question members about what its really like living here, as well as asking any questions you have about how the community is set up.
Do be patient when you contact us, it will generally take us at least 10 days to get back to you depending on how busy we are.
We can get several enquiries a week and all are discussed at length at our weekly meeting.
Finally
Please, don't be disappointed or take it personally if it doesn't work out, as we often have more good people interested than there are places. We have to concentrate on those whose skills and interests happen to match our current needs and available accomodation.
Summary
Enquiry -> ->Short volunteer visit -> -> Volunteer (medium term, or repeated visits) -> - > Applicant Member (1 yr) -> -> Full Membership
FLYING POLICY
If you are travelling from overseas, please bear in mind that we do not accept visitors who have come on an aeroplane.
The environmental cost of flying far out weighs the benefit of your stay. For details of our reasons, see this page here.
For really easy non-flying travel arrangements coming from Europe see the man in seat 61
Basic structure
Apart from one woods, we do not own the site - we rent it from the owner. To do this we have set up two companies:
The housing side of the community is managed by a fully mutual housing co-op (Brithdir Mawr Housing Co-operative Ltd). All full community members are members of the co-op, and vice versa. This housing co-op rents the whole farm (houses and land) from our landlord, and then sublets the land to the limited company.
So, the 85 acres of land and all of the farming side are managed by a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee (Brithdir Mawr Community Enterprises ltd). Again all full members are members of the company, and vice versa.
We view these structures basically as a legal tool to help us manage our affairs and deal with the outside world. (Our annual site budget is about £35,000 and we have to fill in tax returns, hold insurance, fire test certificates etc.)
Rent
We all pay rent (currently about £200 per month per adult, and £40 per month per child) to the housing co-op. This covers the rent that we pay to our landlord for the site, plus council tax, water, cost of maintaining the electricity system, telephone standing charge, fuel for cooking and heating, maintenance and food for communal meals.
We also all pay a monthly contribution to the company (currently about £15 per adult and £4 per child) which covers maintenance of the fences, agricultural buildings etc, care of the animals and the gardens, plus insurance for the farm.
We manage some of the land under various environmental grant schemes and the money that we get for this makes up about half of company funds at the moment. Courses and sales of farm produce such as hay make up the rest. Long term, the farm will pay its own way.
Community work
Members are expected to contribute a certain number of hours community work each week to keep the place running.
The amount of work that we all do varies across the year. We all have different roles depending on what we are good at and what we enjoy doing. But equally, we are a small community and usually we do all end up helping out a bit with most things.
As a guideline we commit to do 18 hours community work per week, of which 2 are general cleaning and tidying. We tend to spend Wednesdays working together, plus having our main community meeting. Apart from this, we do our work around the community as and when it needs doing & fits in with the rest of our lives.
It is expected that people will do their community work when it suits them, but that they will be onsite on Wednesdays, so there are people on hand to help out on big tasks that need a lot of hands.
It is worth pointing out that the life of the community and the farm is central here, and unless you really like outdoors work, whether wooding, animals, gardening or whatever, you are unlikely to enjoy being here.
Some of the things that we do include: fencing, coppicing, gardening, haymaking, cooking communal meals, cleaning, milking, cheesemaking, childcare, making the baler and the tractor work, painting, doing the accounts, looking after the compost toilet.
This does mean that it is impossible to have a full-time job while living here.
Paying the rent
We all work part time either off site or in some cases on site at our own businesses to pay our rent. Anyone coming to the community needs to think about how they would earn a living. It is quite cheap to live here compared to living alone or as a couple, but you do still need an income, both to pay the rent and for your other day to day expenses.
Equally, be aware that community life and running an 85 acre farm takes up a lot of time and energy, which limits what is left for outside work. In practice we mostly work between 2-3 days per week at paid jobs.
Thus living at Brithdir means that you need to be physically and mentally able to work full time. (Half for the community work, half to earn your living)
There is work available in Newport and the surrounding area, but it is pretty limited in type and tends to be seasonal because of the tourist trade. Some of the jobs that current members do are: plumbing, electrical work, waitressing, shop work, woodworking, carving and seed growing.
Eating together
We eat together usually around 3 or 4 evenings a week, sometimes more. Meals are vegetarian, based as far as possible on our own produce, and often include milk, cheese and eggs from our goats and chickens.
We do very occasionally eat meat produced on site (cockerels/male kids) at communal meals, but only with pre-agreement of vegetarian members.
Meetings
We have a work meeting once a week, for 2 hours on a Wednesday usually in the afternoon. This covers the basic day to day practical stuff.
Trial members are usually invited to attend these work meetings, initially just to observe, and may be consulted - but do not get to take part in strategic decisions. Long Term Volunteers are sometimes invited to the meeting.
Our meetings are by Consensus Decision, not voting. This is a formal method of running meetings and if you are not used to it you should ask someone how it works before you attend. If we cannot reach consensus in a meeting then we continue to work on an issue until we get to a solution that we can all live with.
We take turns - one person each week - to say briefly what we're up to and how our work is going, just so everyone knows how we're all doing.
We also have occasional 'feelings meetings' if necessary to share how we are all getting on and sometimes to deal with problems between members of the group. Anyone can request a feelings meeting whenever they think it would help.
We also have extra meetings as necessary to deal with particular issues - usually long-term planning or strategy things - that are too long or complex for the Wednesday meeting. Trial members are not usually invited to these.
Joining the community
We are looking for people who are committed enough to see Brithdir Mawr Community as their career, who bring a spirit of compromise which is necessary when living in such close quarters for others, and for our consensus decision making process. Joining the community is quite a slow process as we all need to be certain (potential and current members!) that we are going to be happy living with each other.
People interested in joining usually come for a short visit of a few days to a week at first, just to get a feel for the place.
If we all get along and you like it here, you would then come back for one or more longer visits, maybe a week or two each time, or perhaps longer as a volunteer depending on your circumstances. If after these visits you are still interested and we have a suitable space available, then we may invite you to come and live at Brithdir as a trial member.
Trial membership lasts for a year, on a 3-month rolling occupancy agreement. To help you while you settle in and look for work, we give you a discount on the rent for the first 3 months.
Your trial will have regular reviews (at 1 month, 3 months and 6 months) to see how things are going. This is not as scary as it sounds but is an important way for us to discuss how someone is fitting in as they find a new niche and all our roles adjust to take account of it.
You will not be invited to your review meeting, which is by full members only, but you will be given any feedback and have a chance to reply & bring up any issues you have as well at the next work meeting. The review process is not about criticising people but finding a way forward and making things work for all of us as new people join in with our lives here.
If all goes well, at the end of the year you then become a full member and can take full part in strategic decisions at all meetings, just like everyone else. You will then also get a 1-year occupancy agreement, and join the Limited Company which runs the farming side of things.
We are currently looking in particular for members with practical skills and an interest in working the land.
Pets
We don't have such strict rules about pets as some communities, but please let us know right at the start if you have pets that you would want to bring with you.
In particular, we have rule of not more than 3 resident dogs here at any one time , and also any dogs that are here must be reliably safe with free-ranging ducks, chickens, sheep, other farm animals, small children and other visitors.
Vans and Caravans
Due to the strict planning situation here in the National Park, it is not feasible for people to park vans/caravans on site and live in them. So volunteers, visitors and applicant members need to stay in the buildings we have already, although for short visits, camping is possible during our summer camping periods.