Do it ourselves self sufficientish skills courses

[grahamhobbs]

There must be lots of people out there that have lots of different skills - how about sharing them?

Courses can cost a lot of money these days, anything from £50 to £hundreds (excluding a certain Home brewing course), for simple self-sufficientish type skillls eg veg growing, bread making, cheese making, green woodwork, oven building, preserves, etc, etc

Can't we organise our own courses, sharing the various skills we have, perhaps on a LETS type scheme?

Anyone interested?

[Big Al]

There must be lots of people out there that have lots of different skills - how about sharing them?

Courses can cost a lot of money these days, anything from £50 to £hundreds (excluding a certain Home brewing course), for simple self-sufficientish type skillls eg veg growing, bread making, cheese making, green woodwork, oven building, preserves, etc, etc

Can't we organise our own courses, sharing the various skills we have, perhaps on a LETS type scheme?

Anyone interested?

It's an admirable idea but I would think it is down to locallity. I'd be interested in a mass of workshop type things such as building a bread oven, gas bottle heater etc, but I don't drive and public transport is a pain [ or is that just my back?] and this is also cost prohibitive for me. I would guess that if you want to do this yourself then advertise in your locallity. At the same time there are lots of info on the web that you could easily adapt to suit your purpose.

If you have any ideas then why not post them here and see if anyone has any imput to offer.

To start with I will be getting the wife to build me a bread oven but I will get her to build the arse end of it into the greenhouse she is doing [ she does not know this yet...] so that when it is used it will become a storage heater for the winter..... at least tyhat's the idea.......

[grahamhobbs]

Big Al, I appreciate that the people on this forum are spread all over the place and I agree it would be best if there were people in the local area, but I'd be willing to travel for some very cheap / free courses.

Although I'm not an expert I'd be willing to teach people the following

Veg. growing / running an allotment
Bread making
Building bread ovens
Basic green woodworking
Building with cob, rammed earth, straw bale, lime plaster, various other building skills

Rather than charge people I would like to see a network of people willing to share their skills

I imagine a database of people and their skills, when sufficient people have expressed an interest in learning a skill from someone, a day is organised and if you teach five people, say, then you get credits to attend 5 other courses. It needs someone to set up a website?

[Big Al]

Big Al, I appreciate that the people on this forum are spread all over the place and I agree it would be best if there were people in the local area, but I'd be willing to travel for some very cheap / free courses.

Although I'm not an expert I'd be willing to teach people the following

Veg. growing / running an allotment
Bread making
Building bread ovens
Basic green woodworking
Building with cob, rammed earth, straw bale, lime plaster, various other building skills

Rather than charge people I would like to see a network of people willing to share their skills

I imagine a database of people and their skills, when sufficient people have expressed an interest in learning a skill from someone, a day is organised and if you teach five people, say, then you get credits to attend 5 other courses. It needs someone to set up a website?

Massive good wishes to you graham I wish I could be of help. Have you heard of the website " just for the love of it" ? http://www.justfortheloveofit.org/ This might be of help to you.

Alan

[grahamhobbs]

Big Al, thanks, this could be just the thing

[Millymollymandy]

Do you have an allotment association Graham? A noticeboard there? Maybe the other allotmenteers are the people to first get in touch with as they after all have got something in common with you, especially when you are living in a city and not in a rural area.

Funnily enough at a recent hamlet gathering a couple of the ladies were suggesting a website for exactly the same thing, I'm not sure what skills they had in mind for swapping* but I suggested also exchange of glut produce, seed and seedling swaps, plant swaps and help if you need to go away suddenly with watering or looking after pets and chooks etc which they all thought was a good idea. So my husband cobbled together a little forum in French that evening, yet to get any feedback from them on the idea. I have a feeling though that it won't get off the ground as those that might use it are probably the ones who we swap plants and produce with anyway.

* The wicked ladies were in hysterics saying "We can teach Mandy how to kill a chicken " cos they know mine are pets but although I would love to learn the 'wringing neck' method they unfortunately do the old French way of slitting throat and leaving to bleed to death and I don't want to know about that.

[grahamhobbs]

MMM, thanks, it was from talking to fellow allotment holders that I got the idea. They were going to get someone to show them how to build a bread oven on their allotment, the guy was going to charge £250 and they would have to supply all their own materials. They were hoping I would be interested in joining them and sharing the cost.

Well I said no need, I know how to do it anyway. So it got me thinking, they could help me build my oven and they would learn how to do theirs, isn't it better to share than have to pay for everything.

[marshlander]

One of the aims of the Transition Towns initiatives is reskilling. The courses are often free.

[Wombat]

Permaculture groups are woth contacting too!

Nev

[frozenthunderbolt]

Alternatively, film ur self (or get a compliant OH to film you) demonstrating step by step a process and then post to youtube and park the link here in a specialty thread.
Alt. Alt. do a step by step idiots guide to post here with lots of piccies!

[mrsflibble]

I can make bread, mayonnaise and am good at pastry (the only good things to come out of agoraphobia; we needed these items, I had to learn to make them to avoid going out... now i make them for fun)
can look at a seemingly bare cupboard and create dinner from it,
can sew
can crochet
can speak basic french (but am terrible at written french)
can do basic computer maintenance
can do basic sewing machine maintenance
and finally i somehow manage to make myself a friend out of any 1-7 year old I meet. I think it's cos we share a similar sense of humour.