During the second half of the year 2000, Ronny Wytek, Martin
Kirchner, and Petra Gruebl made a first, very general run at starting
an ecovillage. The excellent networking of the three enabled a
swift growth to about 25 people, who met monthly at the ‘Ecovillage
jour-fixe’. In between meetings people would meet within various
workgroups.
This first attempt at founding an ecovillage ran aground. Ronny
Wytek explains it this way, “The first attempt failed in the end due to
three things: First, the many people interested in the ecovillage
didn’t form a core group of people who together could have done the
‘pioneer work’. Secondly, there were too many differing wishes
within the large group about how and where the ecovillage should gain a
foothold. Additionally, most of the actors weren’t ‘free enough’
– they were too involved in the necessity of earning money and other
constraints.”
In addition to the important experiences gained, there was another
positive result: A small intentional community in Pielachtal in
Lower Austria was founded.
For Ronny Wytek, an intentional community was not a replacement for
the first Austrian ecovillage. So, on May 26, 2002, he organized
a new type of meeting to present his ecovillage project concept.
The people invited were friends and acquaintances not involved in the
previous ecovillage project.
Many further meeting occurred and in September 2002 the KEIMBLATT
ÖKODORF Alliance was founded. Founding members were, among
others, Ronny Wytek, Magdalena Brueckner, Rudi Buerscher, and Julian
Lindmayer. This group created the association statutes, the
corporate design (logo, etc.), the first homepage, the initial
presentation materials, and the initial financial concept for the
desired project center at that time, “Eisenberg 108”.
During this time, energies were concentrated upon ‘Eisenberg 108’
(contract negotiations, financing, etc.). When, in May 2003, the
purchase of ‘Eisenberg 108’ unexpectedly fell though, the core group
was reduced to Magdalena Brueckner and Ronny Wytek.
In July of the same year, Len Hanak-Hammerl and then Johannes Benker
joined the group and began taking part in the plenary and forums.
That month, the very first issue of the Newsletter “Keimbl@tt” was
published and its readership rapidly grew to 600. Following this,
Sebastian Meyer (August 2003), Alexander Dworak (November 2003), and
Johannes Stolba (December 2003) joined the group.
In February 2004, the search for a new project center began once
again. In April 2004 Johannes Stolba was welcomed into the core
group. At this time, the core group and the expanded team
together consisted of 6 or 7 people. We ‘revamped’ our publicity
efforts – the homepage, presentation materials, and financial concept
were overhauled. Additionally, we made two to three public
presentations per month.
In June of 2004, the KEIMBLATT ÖKODORF happened upon a person
willing to finance the project center. With this new perspective,
the search for a fitting piece of real estate was intensified and the
‘House Sunshine’ was chosen (pictures in the Photogallery.)
Since our patron was not interested in being the owner, it was decided
to accept a loan and within the following weeks the details of the
contract were developed. On September 9, 2004 the contract was
signed. The sales contract for the ‘Sunshine House’ was signed on
September 20, 2004.
House Sunshine has hosted over 50 project guests between 2005 an
2006, engaging in numerous projects such as building earthen stairs,
making jams, and gardening. Two new extended core team members have
joined the project in 2005: Lilah Glick and Manfred Panagl. A total of
five team members live in House Sunshine with a new extended team
member planning to arrive in spring: Karin Behairi. The Keimblatt team
is busy planning exciting projects and course workshops for 2006
including a permaculture course, community planning course, wood
workshop, and two ecovillage celebrations.