Centre tor Alternative Technology Cont. from page 15 slick to get across and skeptics will instantly switch off scruffy presentations however good their message may be. We also continually run into the problems of things not working. At most research sites, things don’t work most of the time because they're being repaired, modified, serviced or simply awaiting the time and money to complete them. We don't have that option — if things don't work people want their money back. To make matters worse, if windmills aren't actually turning (because the wind isn't blowing, the batteries are full or whatever) people will think they're broken. In our advertising- dominated age, people expect flashing lights and whirring cogs and the real thing is seldom good enough. Strangely enough, it is the environmentalists who are our worst critics; it seems as if many of them don't like to see that the alternatives aren't completely developed. Lastly, we've learned not to be too dogmatic. Basically, many people don't want AT to work — it's too new, too challenging and too unsafe. Telling people what they should be doing (whether it's cutting down fuel consumption or building a windmill) often provokes a negative response. Now, we try never to say "you ought" but only "we do it and it works." This way we find more visitors are pulling for us instead of pushing in the other direction. Along with techniques of AT we're also learning about how to live and work together — often slowly and with many setbacks, but with many rewards as welL Although we're set up in a conventional pattern, with a director, answerable to our parent charity, we've tried many ways to devolve this into a more cooperative enterprise. We Page 16 RAIN Oct./Nov. 1982 have many small steering groups for specific areas, and meetings to plan work and discuss the wider aims and developments of the Centre. Unfortunately, living as a community is made far harder by our dual function as an exhibition site. It's difficult to call somewhere home when visitors stare at us whenever we step out of our houses. Attempts have been made to separate public and private space, but most long-term staff have opted to move to nearby villages or cottages. Although this has certainly altered the original idea of a quarry community, it also means that there is far more contact with other people living in the area. This has helped us avoid some of the dangers of isolation. Another way we can begin to enter into the local community is to employ local people whenever possible, but this means employing people who look at the Centre as a job rather than a deep commitment. But then who does subscribe to all the ideals of AT anyway? We think it's important to include people who just want a job, because if it only works for the dedicated it will never get very far. Likewise, staff and volunteers come from many different backgrounds and bring different ideas. Such a hodgepodge makes for a good dialectic if not always for philosophical harmony! I hope many of you who read this will make the trip to see us at some time. You may not agree with everything you see, but I think you'll find it worth the trip. □□ Centre for Alternative Technology Pantperthog Machynlleth, Powys, Wales United Kingdom Farallones Rural Center Cont. from page 14 munities and neighborhoods that criss-cross the globe. I believe that even with the inevitable frustrations and frailties, what we are doing is worth the effort. The Farallones Institute was founded in the early 70s in response to a number of needs. There was, first and knocking loudest, the increasingly insistent energy crunch. It was clear that the only way to answer was by doing something. Pretending it wasn't there wouldn't make it go away. In addition, there seemed to be a gaping hole in the mainstream of American education, right where the practical skills should have been. The time was ripe for a move toward self-sufficiency, toward responsibility for making some positive changes in the quality of life. In 1974, a dilapidated and aged house in Berkeley, California, became the center for a transformation of sorts. Gradually, it became the Integral Urban House and evolved into an example of what might be done as people moved a step closer to self-reliant living in the city. Through workshops and classes based on the premise that people learn best by doing, the Urban House was turned into a living laboratory where alternatives to existing systems could be studied, installed, used and changed as needed. There were courses in solar heating, organic gardening, water and waste systems, animal husbandry and a variety of topics that would help people disengage from the overwhelming dependency on the big-bucks providers of services and goods. Each area taught was related to each of the other aspects of the house, and integrated so that the result would be a wholeness of systems operating with relatively little waste and a lot of recycling. In 1975, it was proposed that a logical next step would be to try the same kind of experiment in a rural setting. That year, the Rural Center was established to follow in the philosophical footsteps of the first Farallones projects. It began with a summer residential workshop, and continued to grow as a center for education as well as research and demonstration, eventually becoming a residential community on a year-round basis. The Rural Center is located on an old homestead in Occidental, in Sonoma County, about an hour-and-a-
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