NBN News

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NBN Board of Directors Call for Nominations

Published by Carrie Campbell on May 29, 2012 in Articles, NBN News

Dear Friends,
We are currently looking for board nominees for our 2012 elections. This is a 2 and a half year term starting in August. The board meets once a month by Internet teleconference and has a yearly weekend retreat where we meet in person. Duties can include project management, volunteer coordination, fund raising, web development, interaction with the public, and being excited by Natural Building. If you are interested in seeking a place on the NBN Board of Directors or would like to nominate someone else please contact us. Applicants must be Natural Building Network members in good standing of at least one year.

 

Avatar of Chris McClellan

NBN Classifieds!

Published by Chris McClellan on May 1, 2012 in NBN News

The Natural Building Network is proud to announce the grand opening of our new Classifieds website. Buy or sell, find work or workers, or a new mud buddy. Basic ads (with pictures!) are free for Natural Building Network members, $5 per month for everyone else. Please contact us for your members-only coupon code.
Please note that this system is used by members and non-members so you will have to register separately. Feel free to use your existing NBN member name and password.

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Under Construction

Published by Chris McClellan on May 1, 2012 in NBN News

Dear Friends,
We are in the process of upgrading our server. Please forgive the little weirdnesses that pop up, and if something really strange is happening please let us know. office@nbnetwork.org

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NBN Classifieds!

Published by Chris McClellan on December 13, 2011 in Community News, Misc, NBN News

The Natural Building Network is proud to announce the grand opening of our new Classifieds website. Buy or sell, find work or workers, or a new mud buddy. Basic ads (with pictures!) are free for Natural Building Network members, $5 per month for everyone else. Please contact us for your members-only coupon code. Please note that this system is used by members and non-members so you will have to register separately. Feel free to use your existing NBN member name and password.

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Natural Building Network Seeking Webmaster / Developer

Published by Web Team on October 4, 2011 in NBN News

Natural Building Network is a not-for-profit membership association promoting natural building principles, materials and practitioners worldwide. We support ecological regeneration, social justice, the building of community and economic opportunity, and the recognition of indigenous wisdom as essential in creating healthy, beautiful, and spiritually-uplifting habitation for everyone.

Web Team Project Manager position available.

We are looking for a webmaster for quarterly or biannual software updates of the NBN website.
Occasional troubleshooting of PHP and CSS.
Site improvements as defined by the Web Team and Web Project Manager.

Mad skills with:
WordPress
BuddyPress
PHP development
Membership site experience with aMember a plus

Please contact us if your interested in this opportunity.

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2011 Board Election Results

Published by Web Team on May 13, 2011 in NBN News

We’d like to thank Tim Owen Kennedy, Sasha Rabin, Greg Wellman and Linda Lloyd for their work with the Natural Building Network Board. Best wishes in all you do.

Our newest Board Members are:
Eddie Hooker
Ya-Yin Lin
Michael G Smith
Christina Ott

We look forward to working with you.
Carrie Campbell
Chris McClellan
Dawn Marie Smith

Board of Directors profiles »

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2011 NBN Board Candidates

Published by dawnallover on April 28, 2011 in Featured Member, NBN News

Christina Ott

Christina Ott first became interested in cob back in 1999 when she took a cob basics workshop in Vermont with Amber Wigget. She was immediately hooked on natural building and decided to pursue it full time starting with a Cob Cottage Co. apprenticeship. After spending a couple of years traveling and getting experience with other builders, Christina founded her own natural building company, Barefoot Builder, in 2005. Christina now lives in a cob house on a farm near Nashville, Tennessee. She splits her time between teaching workshops, consulting, and contracting
I am very excited by the new possibilities open to this generation of natural builders. We are finally seeing natural building move toward the mainstream and now is our chance influence a new building paradigm. I see the Natural Building Network as being an extremely useful support structure for the people who are shaping what it means to be a professional natural builder. I’m excited to have an opportunity to contribute to the natural building community and to help support the work of all of us natural builders and enthusiasts.

Eddie Hooker

Eddie Hooker started with NBN in early 2010 as the Membership Coordinator. He’s been involved in natural building since 2004, mostly in Colorado. While pursuing his B.A. at the University of New Mexico, he learned of the depletion of our water tables, and concerns around sustainable desert living. Now in Oregon, and a recently Certified Sustainable Building Advisor, he is a core member of City Repair’s annual Village Building Convergence. He sees the strength of NBN in its potential to make natural building accessible to the many people who are waking up to the need for a sustainable world, and seeking building options. This accessibility will come by introducing natural builders, with the information and skills, more broadly to the general public. Let’s make natural building a viable option, one that every architect and builder hears requests for every day.

Ya-Yin

Biography for Candidacy by Ya-Yin, LIN

As an architect, I practiced in a conventional way for more than ten years designing huge concrete and steel buildings like hospitals in Taiwan.

With the intention to balance myself as a part of the land developing party, I then joined “ The Society of Wilderness” as a volunteer for many years and finally returned to my hometown establishing a branch of this N.G.O., which inevitably diverted me to a whole different searching for real life.

Attending the Cob Cottage Company’s natural building apprenticeship program proved to be a true bless that had a decisive influence on me. For I wasn’t sure there could be ways for my belief and professional career to consolidate as a harmonious one.

After the completion of my apprenticeship in Oregon forest, I came back to Taiwan starting my own architect’s firm focusing on natural building. Earth, rice straw, thatch, bamboo, driftwood, rock and urbanite are what I have and use most ever since with whatever techniques available and feasible according to the local labor. I am now happy with my life in which I earn my living while working with people who wish to live simply and stamp lightly on earth as I do too.

Michael G. Smith

I’ve been a part of the natural building community since 1993, when I helped start the Cob Cottage Company. Since then I have taught over 100 workshops ranging from 1-day earth oven workshops for kids to 8-week technical trainings for professional natural builders. I have written or co-written three books, including “The Hand-Sculpted House” and “The Art of Natural Building.” I also consult with owner-builders on natural building design, materials and techniques. I enjoy sharing my experience with students and clients, as well as with builders around the world through the web site “Green Home Builder” where I have been the expert on cob and light straw clay for 10 years.

Starting in 1994, I was one of the primary organizers for the first three Natural Building Colloquia. Since those early days I have been thinking about how to help natural builders share information so that we can learn and achieve more than each of us could alone. I’m grateful that NBN was created as a means to those ends, and believe there is a lot of unrealized potential in the organization. What excites me most is using NBN to help facilitate communication amongst practicing natural builders who need technical or political support with their projects.

I have some relevant experience with other non-profit organizations (I’m on two other Boards). I’m a clear communicator, experienced with meetings and creating documents. I have a lot of familiarity with the natural building movement and a vision for where it may be going. I’d like to see what I can do with these skills to help NBN move through its current period of transition into a phase of greater clarity and responsiveness.

James Morrison

Currently based near Seville in Spain, by trade I’m a graphic designer.

My interest in natural building started while traveling across
Europe, seeing straw bale houses, clay floors, walls and rocket
stoves. Using natural materials, working by hand if possible and
helping to connect the traditional to the modern have all been
influences in finding out more.

As a designer I’ve been involved extensively over the last few years
with natural building: as well as working with the NBN I have helped
builders with designs for print and web, and with project submissions.
I’m currently providing the main design work for this year’s European
Straw Bale Gathering.

My practical natural building experience so far extends to projects
and workshops I’ve participated in, but as a freelance designer I
bring skills that are useful to any organisation: communication, an
understanding of day-to-day responsibilities, and an awareness of the
importance of good presentation.

Avatar of Ashley Aymond

Stoking the Revolution

Published by Ashley Aymond on July 20, 2009 in Articles, NBN News

Santoyo Gallagher Rowell

Upon returning from a recent visit to Louisiana, I experienced a deep sadness as I realized the culture shift needed for my home to be healed. I also sensed a great opportunity and responsibility, both of myself and others in the sustainability movement. What does it mean to be a natural builder? Build houses, build nature, build community? I felt strongly that it was all of these.

It was from this place that I felt an urgency to act, and to inspire others to act. A small box in the corner of my heart was opening once again, the place where I keep my most sacred dreams. Dreams that poke their heads out only when there’s a chance that they might be realized.

So, I reached out to the NBN community, and asked similar questions of a permaculturist, a community organizer, and a natural builder about how this shift might look from their unique perspectives, and how we in the community can “Stoke the Revolution”. Some of the questions I asked were:

“What is your vision of a post peak planet and how do we get there?”
“What are the three most significant cultural norms impeding this movement?”
“If you had the opportunity to address our nation, what would be three concrete things that you would ask people to start doing tomorrow?”

The following interviews are the result.

It’s Not Your Carbon Footprint, It’s Your Handprint, interview with Larry Santoyo
Get Over “Big Daddy”, interview with Brandy Gallagher
Learn to Mentor, and Be Mentored, interview with Kevin Rowell

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