HRM of Texas - Annual Meeting - Value Added Living

Value Added Living—In Community

Did you ever think a farming community from the early 1900’s had it right? Strong values of family and community working together in peace and harmony to grow the healthiest food and honor the Earth and the Creator with handiwork so lovingly honed it makes you gasp. Homestead Heritage Farm is living this ideal of a sustainable community of sustainable family farms held together by what they call “traditional values” and faith in the Divine order shaping their lives.

We have asked this community to host us for our 2008 Annual Meeting so we can see this holism in action, learn how values can lead to a Quality of Life, to Forms of Production and a Sustainable Resource Base that side-steps many aspects of our modern American culture seen as not congruent with these values. In addition we will be introduced to some of the lost arts of sustainable agrarian life.

Thursday workshops in Holistic Management Financial Planning and What Holistic Management Can Do for You, provide the setting and the understanding of holism.

The Thursday evening social, 6 to 7:30pm at the Fairfield Inn& Suites, Waco North offers our yearly networking and connecting opportunity for members and others interested in the mutual support of this not-for-profit organization.

Friday offers an exploration of the role of community, values and agrarian skills in sustainability. Homestead Heritage Farm’s Butch Tindell will give the foundations of the community and present some real life examples of holism within the community and within individuals.

We will form small groups to take each of 4 different tours of this most amazing farm made up of little family farms in a sustaining community. Tours include:

a walking tour of the working demonstration homestead;
a horse-drawn hayride tour of the upper land with a stop at the scenic overlook of the Brazos River bottom where they farm with horses;
a craft village tour of the woodworking/furniture shop, pottery shop, blacksmith shop, restored barn (circa 1760) which serves as a retail shop for our handmade crafts, deli and bakery and the restored gristmill (circa 1750);
and a tour of the restored historical buildings, explaining the history and the historical construction methods of each building.

Lunch and supper on Friday and lunch on Saturday are included will be created onsite with home grown grass-fed meats and other goodies. There will be time for shopping in the craft store before supper.

After supper Friday evening Holistic Management International’s Executive Director Peter Holter will take our concepts of community global with stories of holistically managed communities, farms and ranches all over the world. Some use modern technologies to create sustainability and others use traditionally low-tech methods. You will feel connected to a worldwide movement to create healthier lands for a sustainable future.

Saturday morning is a time to come together as the HRM community. We will have our annual business meeting, elect new directors, hear the plans for the future and participate in envisioning our path for the years to come.

After lunch small groups will re-form to choose four different short classes in some of the introduced to some of the lost arts of sustainable agrarian life such as: beekeeping, orchards and vineyards, cheese-making, spinning & weaving and home schooling. We will adjourn about 4pm.

Costs for the 2-day program, including 3 meals, are: $140 for HRM members / $160 for non-members, $260/$300 couples. Register by April 1, online at HRM's Secure Shopping Cart or with Jeanie Dreinhofer (jdreinhofer@hrm-texas.org or 325-348-3014).