Courses/Workshops, Economics — by Nick Huggins April 29, 2011

Link to YouTube Video: http://youtu.be/0OpuSBSRmDQ?hd=1

Professional development for permaculture consultants is one of the biggest opportunities moving forward — expanding permaculture into a business/energy transfer system. (Most permies I run into get scared when money is mentioned, so lets call it energy transfer.)

Geoff and Nadia Lawton have given me a monumental opportunity to integrate professional development into PRI’s education line up and for that I’m very grateful. Since most of the world’s population live in an urban setting, there is thus the most demand for retrofitting human habitats. As such, I will be running a 5-day Permaculture Urban Landscape Design Course.

I ran a 2-day intensive course with the PRI’s January 2011 Interns to gauge their thoughts and their personal responses. The course, while short, gave them a new lease on permaculture life and a direction for building a career in professional permaculture and business.

In the 5-day course starting, 13th June 2011, is going to be intense! You’re going to become part of a permaculture design firm — a member of a team that will function as a professional design firm. We will be engaged by a real life client with an urban garden, with real life outcomes of producing an urban permaculture design presentation in a professional manner. The design created will be used by students of the next course.

Also you will become apart of a permaculture construction company. For three days you will be involved in the estimation, costing, installation and project management of a real life garden — dealing with contractors, suppliers and trades to turn a one dimensional plan into a living system.

My goal is that you will walk away with a greater understanding of what is possible in starting your own business in permaculture. This course also applies to anyone wanting to start their own business in any other permaculture niche and wants to know what steps are involved.

Permaculture business is not hard. If you have an idea, that’s all you need. The rest will fall into place. These are some of the things that will be discussed in breaks during the 3-day construction: Business start up and what’s involved? And what your next steps are?

You’re going to walk away from this course with real outcomes: A design project in full colour with your name on it, to be used by you to show potential future clients, and photos and records of the construction experience to keep in your portfolio.

Shareware Doc’s that can take away with you:

• Copy of two design projects, 1 urban, 1 broadacre, to use as a reference for own design projects.
• Copy of consultation contract with costing. (Applicable to Australia only, but with a guide for international students).
• Copy of construction contracts with costing. (Applicable to Australia only, but with a guide for international students).
• Copy of Excel spreadsheet for project estimation. Applicable world wide.
• Example copy of terms of trade. (Applicable to Australia only, but with a guide for international students).
• Copy of design contracts from past jobs. (Applicable to Australia only, but with a guide for international students).
• On completion students will have the basics of starting and running a perma-scape design & consultation business.

Note: This course is not about designing per se. It’s aimed at gaining the skills of a professional who can combine resources to produce effective design projects and create a business in permaculture.

Sometimes I have seen comments on the PRI website about prices charged for courses being too high and some not being able to afford to come along. If you’re planning to start your own design & consultancy business then the cost of a course is an expense that can be claimed in that year’s business tax as a deduction. This course and courses like it within permaculture are investments in your future. If this course costs $1100 and you’re a permaculture design consultant, you will need to work out what time frame it’s going to take to get that investment back. For myself, for example, if I do two consultations per week (no design work, just a three hour onsite consult @ $220 including tax), i’ll have it paid back in 2.5 weeks. If I do one urban design job it would be paid back within 1 design. (1 design being worth $1250 including tax.)

My vision for professional development is to see permaculture design business outweigh landscape business in the Yellow Pages. Believe me, there are landscapers out there doing this type of work with no understanding of the complexity of soil biology, permaculture design, integration of animal systems and everything else that is involved — and yet they are as busy as ever!

This is an opportunity to turn that energy transfer around to permaculture businesses that can produce outcomes for clients, build relationships and create sound designs that will feed our urban world and close the input loop.

For good measure, I put a video at top covering some of what I’ve been up to in the past month. Ever since Craig Mackintosh shattered my dream of becoming a writer or journalist, I set forth and employed a film production company from Melbourne to help me tell the story (so Craig wouldn’t have to spend a week proofing my articles!). The video covers a broad acre project, but it’s what you can expect when you’re out there in the real world of permaculture design & consultancy.