ERE Community Hubs

[AxelHeyst]

Context
Right now I'm working a business venture fulltime. FI is within sight, and since it is likely to cross the finish line with cashflow 'momentum' I'm likely to have surplus income. I've been inspired by the stories of Loomis and Voscovo, people who made a pile of money dong something boring and then deployed that money on ventures that mattered to them (RnD Laboratory to help beat the Nazis for Loomies; deep sea expeditions #forscience and other projects for Voscovo).

I'll still cautiously intrigued by the idea of 'ventureERE', which I loosely define as a WL7+ individual deploying surplus cash and other forms of capital towards an ERE-minded stoke-directed venture at the larger-than-household scale. I do see risks inherent in the idea. However, it's worth pointing out that we've already got at least one example of successful ventureERE: mountainFrugal's art studio system/WoRgame.

Anyway, my post-FI freedom-to vision goes something like "a solarpunk design/build studio, starting with just me doing my thing but soon incorporating collaborations with other makers/designers/builders/organizers and potentially sprouting into an organization of some sort". One form it could take is a Solarpunk Makerbase. Something along these lines is a concept that I noodle around with as I'm finishing up the "solve money forever" phase of my life.

The Concept
An idea that came out of my various noodlings about an ERE Solarpunk Makerbase is the idea of an Emergent Renaissance Ecology Community Hub, or ERECH (pronounce it ee-wreck).

The purpose of an ERECH could be said to lower the cost of living for the people directly and indirectly involved in it via cultivating a culture and infrastructure of voluntary simplicity, regenerative skill, and individual *and* community resilience.

Depending on the flavor of ERECH it would spend more or less time on

• education/workshops/training/co-learning (how to eat for 150usd/mo; how to personal finance; how to sew; how to install a window; how to fix a bike; etc),
• building stuff (today we're making composting toilets/solar showers/raised beds/DIY room air purifiers/Energy Recovery Ventilators from scrap metal/installing off-grid microPV systems/etc),
• doing stuff (potluck, hike, workout, choir, music, road cleanup/trail maintenance, elders home visits, disaster prep/relief/aid, put on a festival, etc).

I could see some ERECHs being more heavily focused on "community stuff" and other's being focused on "building stuff" - whatever the flavor of participants and location. More rural ERECHs might be more into building stuff, urban ERECHs into community stuff.

I could also see some going more towards makerbase or even workshop/business: a small crew of people start cranking out, idk, solar shower kits and selling them and all of a sudden they've got a cottage industry on their hands. Maybe they form an LLC or a co-op. Maybe a more community focused group gets involved and scales up and forms a non-profit org. Most probably aren't any kind of entity, they're just a loose group of people doing their thing.

Each would almost certainly start as one person in their garage/living room/backyard inviting friends over. Some of them might grow to the point they need their own infrastructure/building/etc. Think about how mountainFrugal's thing started as two dudes meeting at a pub to draw (drink n draw) and is now housed in brick n mortar and integrated into the local community.

Similarly to mF's thing, a big focus would be on *usefulness to people*, which is what I was pointing at with the purpose being "to lower cost of living" although perhaps that needs to be dropped explicitly because not terribly sexi.

This isn't a new idea: lots of entities like this already exist in various flavors (and things like this have been discussed here on the forum before). I'm just trying to think through a pattern (pattern of patterns) that might fit the ERE ethos. Something like this idea is a pattern I'm going to be working with as my time begins to free up over the next couple of years.

A couple notes:
- In my mind, an ERECH is not a card-carrying-EREmite-only club. All are welcome.
- Call it whatever you want.
- An ERECH wouldn't necessarily need any money to operate, certainly not to start. But if one wants to go the direction of a cottage industry or small business operation for example, it might. That's the connection to my 'ventureERE' idea/surplus cash deployment notions.

[Jean]

A skill database would be a good start.

[ffj]

Something that has always personally bothered me are skillsets that die with a person or are diminished due to infirmity or old age. Skills that took a lifetime to develop that are allowed to just go away and not be passed on. What a waste.

I like your idea. Like all things, it has the potential for the bugs and irritations to overwhelm the effort but sharing knowledge is a noble cause. The challenge will be keeping it organic and beneficial as problems arise.

[Western Red Cedar]

Context
I'll still cautiously intrigued by the idea of 'ventureERE', which I loosely define as a WL7+ individual deploying surplus cash and other forms of capital towards an ERE-minded stoke-directed venture at the larger-than-household scale. I do see risks inherent in the idea. However, it's worth pointing out that we've already got at least one example of successful ventureERE: mountainFrugal's art studio system/WoRgame.

Don't forget about @MidsizeLebowski. He and his special lady friend have been working on a version of this, and I think it is one of the more exciting variations on traditional ERE/FI on the forum:

viewtopic.php?p=251851#p251851

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On a related note, I've been noodling on different ways to look at the stash for about six months now. I think I was too fixated on the conventional approach to FI. If one is seriously committed to some form of ventureERE, or building skills with supplemental income, or cutting expenses with new opportunities and creative lifestyle design, then the 25-33x COL starts to become irrelevant.

[ertyu]

Trash place might be open to whoever wants to come scratch their balls or other relevant bits and learn construction/repair skills at whatever pace while being walking distance to groceries - might be useful to someone who wants to be in a midsize, walkable meat-and-potatoes town, next to a scraggly park (for jogging etc), and next to the local uni (low cost engineering degrees of indeterminate quality). Soon-ish, I'll be crowbarrin' it, should you be interested in crowbarrin' alongside. Might be a good place to lay low and keep costs down while upskilling in some way between ventures, etc. Details TBD. DM me if interest but know that at present, the condition of the place is very much not what a middle class first-worlder would consider "livable." ETA: water does evacuate faster than it comes in and there is a door which locks to the outside world More info when I actually get there - I'll need to actually see what it's like now that it's been vacant for 4 years.

Note: the space is all types and flavors of lgbt-friendly. If you are not, this will probably not be a good fit.

[Jean]

What country is that in? What do you mean not livable? I'm a middle class first worlder, my definition for livable is that water evacuates faster than it gets in.
I know you asked to dm, but if those answer are not too sensitive, they might interest more people and this topic is a good place i think.

Also, we have a room that free up in three month. It's also not what most people would consider livable. But i really like the situation. I think most agree that it would be better if it was a german speaking woman. I personally wouldn't care. Some willingness to get involved in the place would be appreciated. By involvement, i mean gardening or woodworkibg or building stuff around, not politics. Good way to see the place would be to come early at the climbibg fest.

[Stasher]

My biggest thought is being cautious to not work hard to leave a job just to create another one that you are even more locked/stuck in as the creator and then get weaved into the fabric of it failing without you involved. Just a comment of someone who has done a few businesses and the last thing I think about is loosing any more of my free time adding on more responsibility. (Caveat being I am now in the over 50 ERE cohort timeline)

That being said, sounds like an awesome idea and the hard part to me would be having certain types in one place. The permaculture crowd might not want to be around a tool/maker co-work space and then they aren't interested in the finance/budget/money classroom types. If you can break down barriers then it is plausible.

The closest thing to what you are possibly talking about I can think of locally is maybe this, but way more on the permaculture side of things.
https://ourecovillage.org