We are building up a network of free spaces

From 23rd to the 26th of october 2010 there was a meeting on collective farms taking place on the collective farm Wieserhoisl (Deutschlandsberg) Austria. It was called - living and working on collective farms - development of common strategies. It turned out to be different then we planned it - nevertheless it was a tremendous success.

It should have been a  meeting of collectivist@s, a space for exchange of experiences for people that are living in equal systems like us on the Wieserhoisl - farm collective. Only three people from other collectives came - two from the french Longo mai Kooperative Grange Neuve and one from the Kollektive Ecole de Suc in the Ardeche. To invite people to a meeting in the end of september is for sure a very bad date - as it is harvesting season everyewhere at the farms. Next time in winter!
It turned out to be a meeting for people that are interested in collective structures in the countryside or that want to initiate collective farms. More than 40 people came to discuss, exchange, develop ideas, cook and have party together. Most of all things we did, we dug on to show the societal majority that it works out differently.

We worked on different topics - financing of collective structures, collective ownership, social solidarity, solidarity on other levels, possibilities in collectives, locations, soil, dreams, visions, objectives.....

Why such a meeting?

The aim of meetings like this could be to be infectious as the meeting on collective farms at the Wieserhoisl - collective was. To create space for young farmers, gardeners and new landless to share their dreams and build up perspectives. It was great that people that already live in collective structures could support newcomners through concrete support to build up new collectives as well as making transparent their every day life. Beyond infectiousity the goal for people that already live in collective structures is to build up persistent perspectives to work in solidarity and friendship on the change of the societal framework, to build up a network of farms and to force an international process.

Even though every day life for the participants may be back since a long time, some things stayed 
motivation and enthusiasm to build up parallel structures
bigger and new networks
new groups that want to put collective farmlife into practice
a working group that works on the implementation of a financing body (syndicate) for collective projects
a wiki site about collective farming and everything around this (https://we.riseup.net/hoko);
an initiative to bring cooperative and collective life into everyday life of others (caravan)
the wish to organize another meeting next year to make the formation of collectives a continuous process


Continuative questions:
How could networking inbetween projects and collective farms work on different levels of solidarity? How can we implement this now? (foodcoops, diverse projects in cities and collective farms)
Why did so many experiences fail? What could facilitate our successful collective living?
We are not used to live collectively because we grew up in an individualistic society, so how do we deal with this?

We, the weezelz also step forward and are intensively working on possibilities to free the place we are living at. We got to buy it. Any ideas?

Vision/Imaginaire
We are building up a parallel system, a network of free spaces ( farms, workshops, squatted houses, foodkoops, houseprojects, free/self governed schools, kindergardens etc.) and try to live autonomy, dependent on our needs. 
We want to create enduring spaces for those who do not want to live inside the system any more and for those who do not want to be absorbed of it. 
More then just life at a place it concerns the idea to build up an outreaching network to constitute a front opposing state, multinationals and any form of governance.