i'm actually quite annoyed in some ways that the ark never came about in june time, i really wanted to move in then.  get used to the weather and spend six months getting settled, planting crops and learning bushcraft skills and probably failing miserably first time around.  that was the original plan.

the new plan actually kinda makes a lot more sense and i'm sure you really interested in why the ark never happened in june so let's just take this blog post as a bit of a catchup about what's been happening.

firstly the good news is that the ark project HAS been funded, all i can say right now is that it's a house builder that is involved and it's in a partnership with the national forest and the awesome team that this has happened at all - that's not to mention the effort that chris and mike from the management company have all put in.

secondly without the support of peter and kristina from livingARK we would have never managed to get the help regards building our ark this far if they had not seen the vision of the project from a social media standpoint.

it feels good to be working on a project that from all angles has a fully supportive team and everyone gets a slice of the project pie - the national forest get daily social media exposure and livingARK not only get to see another ark out in the wild but they get the coverage and interest from myself talking about it - great promotion and pr on a day to day basis.

the original understand i had in june was that we had a pocket of money secured and that we were adding to that with a bigger amount of someone that had been on the 'backburner' for sometime. that actually never happened, in some ways it was probably meant to be - after all, fibrecamp suddenly started to take off in nottingham and we are actively being used for conferences and streaming events as well as training how to use these new cloud tools.

so, let's talk about logistics, or more to the point what the next 3/6 month window looks like in terms of ordering, parts, construction and projects that are going to 'hit the ground' running before ideally the opening of the ark in the last week of february (first week of march at a push - sxsw starts that week and we HAVE to be ready for the potential of a project there) three months before the olympics are meant to be kicking off in the uk.

i'm super committed to getting myself transport sorted to be able to visit the national forest at least once a week so i can keep up with progress with chris and mike about the actual money side, i'm hoping that between themselves and livingarks that the parts can be ordered as soon as possible.

i've been working (indirectly) on how i expect the plan for the ark to look like in terms of cutting back a line of sight and video cameras to stream the current patch of land where the ark is going to be situated.  weirdly last week i met with a gentleman who i'll be seeing next week to talk satellite trucks with.

keen to get a satellite uplink to the march 2012 sxsw conference pushed to multiple monitors in the hallways for the length of sxsw interactive (i'll not make it this year - would have been my fifth year) i wanted to blur the lines and transmit using streaming technology a feed from the heart of the national forest into austin, texas to maybe inspire conversation about travel, home and technology with a side order of green and enviromental issues - helping to  bring the second sxsw eco conference into the limelight six months after the usual conference.

it was great to meet up with so many passionate non profits at sxsw eco and some real out of the box thinkers who are using 3d printers to build solid products to bolt on to new services in austin, that kind of thinking and creativity should be invested in.  those people do not come along everyday - i'm hoping that the connections i made at the very first sxsw eco will be ones i can call on as i'm building out the projects of the ark over the course of the year.

i might not be in, but it's coming - and for me and ellas quality time and her learning about living off the grid but in the cloud(s) that really fills me with a stack of happiness that nothing else can replace.

if your not subscribed to the project yet or this is the first time you have read a blog post please do sign up to our mailchimp list or download the pdf document which goes into depth about how our project will unfold over the course of the year.

we need your community voice! - are you a green/sustainable word of mouth company who can help field questions from a large internet community who has lots of questions to ask? - we need you, badly.  in return you will get the exposure of working with such a signature social media project.

also if you are a brand new eco company that is doing something amazing in the space with low powered devices, solar, wind power or waste management please do get in touch - we are very keen to have fortnightly testing session of new devices.  we are your eco in the middle of nowhere test bed!