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greenacres news camphill community greenacres volume 3 issue 3 by katri halme june 2011 greenacres history part 3 n the beginning of february 2004 mary kenny arrived to greenacres full of youthful energy and enthusiasm she was a welcome addition to our small community enjoying her life in the city to the full in her wake came siobhan humphreys a local woman who added another wonderful social element to our community the two women quickly became close friends and by the end of summer 2004 mary was working with siobhan in airfield a city farm next door to our community while the links with the airfield trust were already there the connections now took a new forms as siobhan mccallion also found work there in the cafe the aspect of working in a garden yet living in the city tempted many others too and soon shane nolan was knocking at our door and he joined the community the following summer workshops developed in the house too there was a weavery busy kitchen and a garden workshop and soon we were ready to offer various day activities for many people outside the community therefore while both siobhans and mary were i gallivanting in airfield and andrew in the corres centre sean from tallaght and the women rosaleen theresa polly mae marie and other women from st margaret s in donnybrook found their way to our weavery and kitchen the days were spent in workshops and in the evenings we had talks drama and music nights however there was less and less space for respite guests and other visitors as by that stage greenacres was bursting at its seams the busy playgroup short of bedrooms hazel house in kilmacud was bought in 2005 and julie shane and siobhan mccallion found a new home there at the same time shane byrne a student from trinity college moved in to greenacres to live with us for a year co-workers moved on and in one by one as kae left after her year with us clara from germany arrived vera left and then falk arrived and anna and eva and julia and jane and tuija and tommy and ahmed and stefan and fabian sooner than we realised we were just like any other camphill community with people from all over the world coming and going so did julie by the end of 2006 she had moved to cloughjordan in tipperary brenda gill and their three boys shaba cheyene and tichina arrived to ireland from botswana in the beginning of 2007 and at the same time silja kallioinen from finland moved in part 4 2007 onwards and the big move in the next edition had to move on to rathfarnham and for many other activities we had to say no as we had no room anymore we needed new space unfortunately the timing was bad as the house prices had sky rocketed in dublin nevertheless we saw no other options or soon we would be sharing more than just our lives since we were running this vie!dbtreioknhis!to!ries in ome da i a welc res work in greenac p weavery worksho kids in camphill more and

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my break in ballymoney by andrew ryan went to ballymoney for holidays in a nice community called ballymoney in gorey wexford it is a nice place just beside the sea and there was a nice beach named ballymoney beach just down on the road i went for a nice walks there the time i spent there the weather was very nice and sunny so i was ballymon ballymoney breaks i able to do many nice things outside like gardening and walks and inside watching a bit of tv what i liked most about being there was the people i met and i am already looking forward to my next visit having a break was a nice thing but i missed greenacres especially all the people here ey house trip to ballymoney by mary kenny on my last day we had a movie night with a difference it was different for me because we all ate our supper in my housemother s bedroom in front of her fancy tv this was very enjoyable it was the third part of the pirates of the caribbean movie i also went for plenty of walks on the beach and got lots of fresh air i also met two good friends of mine called grainne and barbara.the co-workers were really nice i found some big differences between life in dublin and wexford such as morning gathering and their mealtimes in the morning gatherings in greenacres we go through the diary but in wexford we just read a verse for mealtimes we ate our hot meal in the evening but i got used to the changes ver y easily after a couple of days we also on one night had a disco with a difference in the sense that it was held in the laundry in another community near by called duffcarrig the residents brought along their own music and for about one hour we all danced and had a good time together r ecently i went on a very enjoyable trip to wexford during my stay i did many activities such as basketry and cooking i also sometimes went shopping in the nearest village with my housemother called renatta we also had a barbecue which had to take place indoors because of the rainy weather have a look in our craft and our work acess our webpage www.camphill.ie/greenacres or contact us on 1 2987618 2 greenacresnews

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couple holiday by siobhan humphreys in cork the weather was good a group of us stayed in a hotel the name of the hotel was called the radisson blu the staff in this hotel were very friendly and the food was lovely and tasty my room was lovely holidays and work on march a group of us went to cork just one day before my 40th birthday on saturday morning shane and i went on a train trip to a location named little island in the little island location there was a town before we got to the town we went astray briefly on our walk it started to rain heavily the rain didn t ruin our day out in matter of fact we were laughing in the rain and enjoying each others company in the little island location we had a muffin and cappuccino each after our trip to little island we then headed back for a train to the hotel again while we were in cork we had alone time together to do what we wanted like relax ,talk and have a lot of fun together my partner was excited at the idea of having a couples time somewhere of our choice it was hard at first to choose a couples holiday and location for my 40th birthday we came across the blu radisson hotel in cork and went for it getting now to my 40th birthday in the radisson hotel shane and i first had a couples meal together which was for me incredible after our lovely couples meal we both relaxed together after we relaxed together shane and i met up with the others for an amazing time we met for a drink at the in the restaurant in the hotel i can say it was a lovely birthday m y name is silja and i m a social care worker in greenacres i came to ireland in the beginning of 2007 straight after i graduated with a degree in social services i joined greenacres as a short term coworker but then decided to stay longer than a year it s been four years since i arrived and i m still in dublin i spent two years living in the community the first one on upper kilmacud road and then i moved in a flat with one of our residents i love crafts so i was very happy to be a workshop master in the weavery at the time after two years i left the community moved together with my partner russell and started to study in a college in dundrum i finished my studies in 2010 and quite soon after that started to work in greenacres as a part-time social care worker i make sure that all the records are kept updated i also join meetings keep in touch with families and arrange reviews for me it was great to get a job in the community because i already knew the co-workers residents and their families very well i was also familiar with living in a life-sharing community after spending two years in greenacres as a coworker i find my job very interesting sometimes challenging but also rewarding every day is different and i enjoy working with all the lovely people in greenacres working in greenacres 3 greenacresnews

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special 3th of october wednesday i woke up early in the morning feeling very tired i decided to go back to bed and have a rest day i slept all day long and i couldn t even have any meal because i was very tired and my only wish was to sleep later in the evening marcos came back from the workshop and woke me up suddenly i felt very well and went for a good bath and after that called my parents just the second before i managed to take the phone i could feel my waters break davi was on his way welcome to the world davi by marcia campos 1 together hoping for dilation with no success so we agreed that the best thing to do at that stage would be to move to the hospital our dearest friend john o connor was sleeping at our home that night and kindly took us to the national maternity hospital because neither of us can drive at national maternity we had to work hard to get some progress on the labour after long hours ,unfortunately i was making no progress and the pain was quite strong at a later stage i could not cope with that anymore so i decided to ask for an epidural they gave it to me and it was a great help from then on i managed to get some sleep and marcos could relax a bit he was a wonderful partner staying by my side all the time a couple of hours after that i was still not making progress in terms of dilation so they decided the best thing to do was to give me something to help me with that once it was done i start slowly to progress but after about 28 hours in labour i was still not fully dilated the team of midwives thought it best that i have a caesarean section which upset me and marcos after all our hard work to have our baby in a natural way .so we asked for one more hour and they agreed one hour later after 30 hours waiting to meet our little one davi was born on the 15th of october at 5:07 am 3.100 kg full of happiness and joy we proudly welcomed him that was for sure the most special time in our lives now 8 months later we still can say that every single day with our davi is special he is growing fast and learning new skills every day and on top of that he is teaching us new things about life happiness andabout ourselves as human beings he is really a gift of god to us i called marcos and both of us were very happy and excited to welcome our little baby and very surprised when we realized how clever nature is the tiredness and need for rest was just my body preparing me for what was about to come we were planning to have a home birth and we had already all the stuff needed for that ready so we started to prepare our room nicely for the birth and contact our families and friends telling them the good news luckily we had enough time to arrange everything before the contractions started.around midnight the midwife came over to help us we all stayed 4 greenacresnews davi 8 months old first baby born in greenacres

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camphill special having kids in camphill by noel bruder including weekends and evenings when their own kids might otherwise be more the focus of attention on the other hand the parents in effect work from home and are therefore around much more than someone in a 9 to 5 job whats more camphill communities are often in lovely locations and afford kids so man more opportunities for play than t hey might otherwise get my eldest oona was raised in this wonderfully supportive setting after we moved to ireland my boys erasmus and francis had their pre-school years on a small-holding farm where they had space to play and were surrounded by animals and nature all my kids have had the opportunity to meet and make friends with people from all over the world and to mix with all kinds of everyone so that their social skills are finely developed isnt that a great gift to give a child i ts a funny thing you know but co-worker kids are often seen as some sort of bunch of outlaws in some of the bigger communities where the camphill village is just that on a village scale and physically separate from its surroundings gangs of these kids run wild left to roam around my first camphill community was such a place sylvia koti in finland not only did the co-worker kids have free reign in the community they also formed a gang in the local school harmless but terrifying their wild ways are often put down to the fact that the parents are too busy with camphill to pay them enough attention but i d say that raised in a camphill community is more of a mixed blessing true the co-worker parents are often on-duty for long hours i was born in a community in finland but only lived there for 3 months before we moved to ireland being a kid in camphill by erasmus bruder garden house in kilmacud dublin it was great with all the special needs people to play with after a few years we had to move house and it was all a bit of a roller-coaster ride after that camphill is also amazing because co-workers come from all over the world to work in camphill.i have lived and met with co-workers from all over the world such as korea and brazil but they usually come from germany i lived in a camphill on the kilkenny/tipperary border it was really fun messing about and playing on the farm with all the animals nature and people for company and of course my big sister oona and my little brother francis i was about 4 years old when i moved to a huge 3 acre oona erasmus and francis 5 greenacresnews

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weavery workshop greenacres by cristine without the floor-loom in use each day there are several people working in the weavery christine the current co-worker and housemother at farmhill and pauline an erasmus-student from lithuania work each day to support the visitors resp the weaver who drop in for the workshop beside this there are two local volunteers who come around to help out for some hours once a week in the end we try to sell the products beeing produced in mutual work in the weavery together with those of the other greenacres workshops just recently we had our first stall in 2011 at the craft market on airfield farm the weavery workshop is not limited to just weaving we also have the materials and expertise for felting rug-making knitting and crocheting and even for making lovely hand-made greeting cards in addition we have a sewingmachine and an overlocker which can be used for tailoring different stuff from the woven fabric not to forget the traditional hand-sewing technique with just pin and thread unfortunately we do not have enough room to use all machines and techniques at the same time the floor-loom is actually never used because it would need too much room if we assembled it we wouldn t be able to provide enough workplaces per day the weavery usually gets crowded and cramped with just four or five people trying to work simultaneously on different tasks even by denis i n greenacres we run a weavery workshop every monday to thursday from 9 a.m until 1 p.m the weavery is located at the end of the garden in farmhill in the small outbuilding we provide three table-looms one backstrap loom one floor-loom frames for handweaving and a peg-loom but volunteering at greenacres a s part of a course which i was doing at the portobello institute there was a requirement to spend some time doing activities with adults in a social setting i had often heard about camphill and found the philosophy on which the community is based very interesting i got in touch with katri and we agreed that i could for a few hours every wednesday which was usually the art/craft session to begin i was a little apprehensive but katri s attitude was very encouraging believing that it is always worth to try something out she was right as from the beginning i got a very warm and friendly reception from the residents and co-workers alike as the weeks went by i got to know everyone and always felt very relaxed there is always banter laughter and good humour i have learned a lot about my self and other people from the visits and admire the paper rolling machine from brazil and am going to learn how to make paper next all very handy skills my course is now finished but i continue my weekly visits to camphill ­ wednesday afternoon would not be the same without them especially tea-time and marcia s and level of co-operation that exists between all who are present and the way each person s opinion is treated with value i feel this is an important aspect of any society over the weeks i have learned origami how to press flowers blow eggs saw a very impressive mary s cookies i hope they make them again!

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