don't we all.

Actually depending upon the season or given the various geography the actual time of year, there may not be a lot to see from the outside. Even if there may be quite a bit of work, cleaning, and design going on inside.

To be clear, seeing that this is our first "official" year of being organization there's a lot that needs to be done in preparing for this fall and the release of our first funded project. Needless to say, how much work is getting done will depend upon two of the most dominant aspects of any organization - time and money.

The time that is spent in working on the building becomes time that isn't spent in projects that generate some form of income. Alternatively, that time keeps us away from working on the building as efficiently as we'd like.

Needless to say, juggling the different projects become a bit of a project in and of themselves. Still on a brighter note and completely in sync with milestones we've created here is some rough guidelines as to how we see this year panning out.

Landscaping and grounds

The two most dominant aspects of our property deal with one of our very long term project (native wildlife garden) and the recently funded rainwater harvesting project that we began the initiation of the spring (only now in October have we actually been able to secure a contractor).

Balancing the development and landscaping of the rainwater harvesting project with the growing season of some of the native plant life has been a challenge. Still, it appears will be able to get much of the seed laying for our wildflower garden beds in time for the longer the growing season over the summer and early fall.

The native wildlife garden has its primary trails cut to preserve some of last year's more established plant life and with a little luck we can add a few more wildflower beds in areas that will not be disturbed by our neighbours contractors.

Additionally, we have been reluctant to work in other areas of the grounds knowing that these areas will be completely removed, reshaped, and re-engineered with the landscaping being done this spring.

The building - say RAW space

Perhaps the most daunting aspect here comes down to what can be done with the least amount of money that has the largest affect on some of the projects that we are working towards. However we do need to show that something is changing and happening at the church. Some of the more visual cues will be:

• painting of the exterior masonry in blue and yellow accents
• removing the commercial grade front door and replacing it with an artful wooden stand in.
• replace the lower doors to the design studio
• remove the antique single pane glass windows and replace with various experiments in thermally efficient design alternatives.
  

In a project related sense, we are working to install examples of the solar chimney so that we can get volumetric wind data from their output. Meanwhile inside there is work being done to build the wind turbine generator component, but again it comes down to time and money.

Volunteers

Nearly all of the work being done here in the Institute is being done on a volunteer basis with only a handful of people popping in from time to time. However, to be fair the majority of it is being done by myself and one of my neighbours who is constantly looking for things to keep him busy.

If you have an interest in working on/in/around the Institute, please feel free to contact us through e-mail or by phone to let us know what areas interest you and the approximate amount of time you have available. It is my own personal promise, is that it'll be a fun, constructive, conversational experience and you will be well fed at the end of the day (we like our cookouts).

Hopefully, this will suffice for now while we wait for things, like nature to take place.