The Lifeboat Academy started as an attempt to answer a simple question: what does it actually take to live differently, together? What would it mean to live well within a sustainable footprint. The Lifeboat Academy and the Spalding Valley Farm on Pender Island are our example of what this might look like in an actual place, working out the practical, financial, and relational scaffolding for that answer — in public, as we go.
How We Work
Underneath all of it is a set of practices — sociocracy, circle process, consent-based decision making — that shape how we actually work together day to day. The structure only holds if the process holding it together is sound. If you want the deeper mechanics, they’re laid out on Transition Economics and The Nitty-Gritty.
Core Team
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Interested in becoming part of the crew? We would love to hear from you.
Current and Past Interim Stewardship Council Members and Other Partners
Bernie Amell, Ecological Designer & founder of Heartwood Cooperative, Quadra Island
CoHo BC, Collaborative Home Ownership
Paula Caird, Manager, Government of Canada
Jake Enns, Founder of the Renewing the Future Society
Lisa Fleming, Ptarmigan Arts
Ronnie Gelman, The Lifeboat Academy
Brooke Hayes, PhD, Soil Science, University of Victoria
Ben Kadel, PhD, Emotus Operandi; The Lifeboat Academy
Rebecca S. Krantz, PhD
Roland Maurice, The Lifeboat Academy
Deb L. Morrison, PhD, CLEAR Environmental
Jim Peacock, Southern Gulf Islands Community Justice Program
Heather Pritchard, Foodlands Cooperative of BC
Benji Ross, Founder of the Bioregional Catalysts and Weavers Guild
April Struthers, Social Change Consultant / Owner Wit Works Ltd.
Want to be part of this?
If you want to be part of the experiment, we’d like to talk. Check out the different ways you can become part of the crew.
Where to find us…
Contact Info & Location
9891 Spalding Rd
Pender Island
BC V0N 2M3
phone 604 600 5442 or 604 565 6079
Have a question or an idea? Send us an email!
email: friends@lifeboat.academy