Random Camel Housing Co-op of Ipswich, Suffolk, purchased 23-27 Foundation Street, Ipswich in 2012. It’s a terrace of 3 2-up 2-down properties, two of which have been knocked through, one remaining as a self-contained entity. In all, it can house up to 9 tenants. The house is versatile, spacious – big rooms and lots of storage spaces – rather worn in terms of decoration, or in the midst of eco refurb. Our co-op is a great opportunity for a group of people to create a base of community action and live as an intentional community.
The houses have calm and quiet days, bustling renovation days, crazy parties and regular guests, visitors and events. It’s in the middle of town but standing in the rose and honeysuckle back gardens it feels like a secluded oasis. The rooms are different sizes and types and most need some level of work.
We try to live sustainably, in as low impact fashion as possible in an urban environment. We are veggies and vegans. We recycle allot, compost, re-use, help run a food co-operative we founded in 2007 where we get our wholefoods, help out at a Community Supported Agriculture Scheme we helped start a few years ago, run work days to do work on the houses, and work with a few different local environmental and other groups. We have had events at the houses including film screenings, prisoner letter writing groups, hosted bazaars, music gigs, women’s groups, neighbourhood tea parties, massage sessions and more.
Future plans include linking up with the Energy Co-op that the Transition Town group is starting, we’d like to build a compost loo and run training courses on the eco-renovations that we’ve learnt, an info centre and zine library, band practice space, passive solar extension and lots more events.
We like to meet like-minded people and like nothing better than when our house is buzzing with people, being inspired and informed.
