VEG’s Dan & Adam just had a truly memorable weekend with Allan Savory, a man we deeply respect and owe a great deal. Without Allan’s development and refinement of his holistic management decision making framework there is a fighting chance VEG wouldn’t exist, and if it did that it wouldn’t feel anywhere near as grown-up and functional and as awesome a thing to be part of as it does. It was just so great to spend a little time with someone we think so highly of, and who has influenced us so much.
Last night Dan over dinner plucked up the courage to share VEG’s holistic context with Allan, who kindly looked it over, then commented to the effect that “this looks good, you’re on the right track,” before sharing some general tips and insights he’s gathered in over 50 years of continuous work on and with holistic decision making. A holistic context, by the way, is a kind of map capturing what you stand for (really and truly, deep down beneath all the fluff) and how you go about realising this long into the future that becomes like an operating system and modus operandi. We’ll be sharing ours publicly online in a month or two, and writing more about our other and ongoing applications of Allan’s work, so if you’re interested you’ll have to wait and see!
Big thanks to Milkwood Permaculture’s Kirsten Bradley for inviting us along for a meal with Allan and others at the unique and awesome Joost’s Silo restaurant (seriously you have got to check this place out – zero-waste, recycled everything, no packaging, and seriously good vibes)…
Now if hanging out with one famous person wasn’t enough, our old mate and main man Costa the one and only human hedge had rocked up to introduce Allan’s Saturday evening talk. It was great to catch up over a truly memorable meal (that to Adam’s delight included edible weeds like oxalis in more than one course!). We met Costa shortly after VEG started when a permablitz we organised was covered in Costa’s Garden Odyssey, and we seem to manage to catch up a few times each year without trying too hard…
Dan sharing a laugh with Ray (long-serving principal at Monbulk primary – principal to Joost and now to his kids!), the ever-jovial human hedge, and our friend, colleague and generally lovely human being Kirsten Bradley of Milkwood Permaculture fame
Despite being on the last legs of a massive Australian east-coast talking tour and having a nasty cold, Allan spun yarns late into the evening and had us all (including young Adam on the right there who suffers from quite a high humour threshold) in stitches…
Then, this afternoon, just before escaping, Allan was kind enough to join us for this little momento, taken right after after exclaiming “I feel like a runt between you two!” Ironic given he is one of the giants whose shoulders we stand on…
All and all a weekend we’ll not forget with a man we owe a lot, with muchos gratitude to Kirsten (and Nick!) from Milkwood and Kym & Georgie from Regen Ag for making the event happen and for inviting us to be part of it). For more info about this holistic management caper check out the website of the Savory Institute, flick us an email, or stay tuned as there can be no doubt that you’ll be hearing more about it from us in future.
