Old Hall Community
We are a fairly large community of people who share an old friary, and 70 acres of Suffolk farmland. We share the work to be nearly self sufficient in food and are moving towards creating our own energy too, having used solar panels for a few years and recently installed a Ground Source Heat Pump and a Biomass boiler (heats water from waste).
Most meals are eaten together, using our own meat, vegetables, and fruit.
To make all this happen we each try to do around 15 hours community work a week, jobs include the mundane and the skilled - and all are valuable! Community work includes milking, cheese making, caring for the farm and our animals, growing food, cooking, cleaning, sewing, maintaining the buildings and the grounds - and so much more!
In the summer months we enjoy help from Wwoofers from all over the world.
We hold events: festivals, theatre, music and celebrations and parties.
To help our communal living to work we have "Friday meetings" where we discuss ideas, and make decisions by consensus. Sometimes, of course, we have conflict and disagreement - all part of the rich tapestry here!!
The children and young people here have a great life climbing trees, cycling, playing ball-games, baking bread, some like gardening! Budding musicians get together in the music room. Children walk or cycle to local schools.
We have too many cars between us, some try to share, but the car park is still bursting at the seams!! We have even more bikes than there are people!
Our future hopes and plans include an olive grove, maybe a bore hole, definitely fewer thistles, more resources for the kids, a more efficient vegetable store so that our carefully grown vegetables and fruit last longer.
