Tutors

Catherine Dunton-McLeod

Catherine has been the “mom” of Plenty Permaculture since it’s birth in 2014: organiser, webmaster, marketer, registrar, librarian, hostess, housekeeper and tutor.

With the Plenty Permaculture Design Course now hitting it’s stride in it’s fifth year, Catherine and Neville have started up a part-time permaculture design consultancy, to assist local residents who want a permaculture design for their lives and their properties but do not have time for a course.  You will also find short courses sharing specific skills like pruning, microscope use and wood stacking on our events page.

Catherine is a co-founder for the neighbourhood organic foods co-op (WOT), a member of the Tree Crops Asso., and of the designers guild of PermablitzBOP.  She holds a BA degree in Fine Arts, a Masters degree in Oriental Medicine, a license to practice acupuncture and Chinese herbology, a Level 1 Teaching Certificate (Sente Centre, USA), a Level 3 Certificate in Organic Horticulture, and a Permaculture Design Certificate from Auckland Permaculture Workshop, 2012.

Neville Dunton-McLeod

A financial and economic analyst, Neville spent 22 years in the corporate world of international and regional development banking. This has been followed by 21 years as the owner and executive director of a group of companies involved in the provision of medical specialist surgical services including associated technologies. Neville has high level management skills with a specific specialization in the health sector in systems thinking and systems dynamics.

Neville is a fourth generation Taurangan from a longstanding agricultural farming family. He learned woodworking, mechanics, farming and gardening from his father and grandfather, and culinary arts from his Danish grandmother. He has grown and exported fruit to the discerning Asian markets. On the current property, he designed the solar power system and the water systems. He understands weather and climate as a certified coastal skipper (RYA) and recreational pilot.

Driven by concerns that much of what the human species is doing is unsustainable, Neville earned his design certificate from Auckland Permaculture Workshop in 2012 and, in 2014, from The Permaculture Institute. With sustainability and responsible use of earth’s natural resources in mind, he felt compelled to sell up in the city and buy the rural property of which he and Catherine are a part. Their shared vision is that the property will demonstrate that abundance and sustainability are not mutually exclusive concepts, nor are practicality and beauty.

Kazel Cass

Kazel Cass is a Horticulture Tutor, with a degree in Horticulture, and a post grad diploma in Teaching.  Involved in teaching both conventional and organic horticulture, she is a consultant for avocado growers who wish to transition to a more sustainable growing model.  Kazel has been a pest monitor for Crop Check for a number of years, finding a fascination with the tiny world of insects and experiencing first hand the benefits of biodiversity.

Dan Palmer

Dan Palmer is founder of Making Permaculture Stronger, founder of the global Permablitz movement, director of Very Edible Gardens, and a house-bus living husband of one and father of two.

He has a BA and Masters Degree in Social Science, a PhD in Systems Thinking, and has been a full-time professional permaculture designer for over ten years.

His teachers and mentors include permaculture founders Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, as well as Darren Doherty and Rosemary Morrow, the last of whom he spent seven months teaching and implementing permaculture in Ethiopia and Uganda.  Dan is our presenter for the permaculture Design Process Modules.

Kama Burwell

After doing a PDC in 2002, Kama moved back to a corner of her family farm to raise a family and create a permaculture paradise whilst doing sustainability education and the odd bit of permaculture design consultancy.

In 2009, she attended a Terraquaculture course with Prof Haikai Tane, had her mind blown, went to China with Haikai for a month to further study traditional asia-pacific watershed management and farming systems (and had her mind extra blown). Upon returning to Aotearoa, Kama re-thought everything – her design practice, her permaculture teaching curriculum, and the design of the home permaculture paradise.

Kama is currently a full time permaculture designer and ecological engineer, in the GreenBridge team, based in Taranaki. She now lives in suburbia, and is part of a group developing a co-housing project.

Andrew Stephenson

Andrew is a registered architect and holds his Permaculture Design Certificate since 1995. He integrates permaculture design principles into his architectural designs with the focus being on zone zero and its immediate surrounds. His passion is the creation of resilient homes being an Assessor for the Green Homes Scheme and now the HomeStar Ecohome rating system. He has designed and built his own eco-home which received an excellent rating under the BRANZ Green Home Scheme when he used to live and work in the Bay of Plenty. He is now a director of Bell Stephenson Architects Ltd in Motueka and is loving the Top of the South Island.

In 2006 Andrew, his wife Petra, along with their three children, decided to go on a grand adventure and packed up everything to travel around New Zealand in their own purpose designed and built 11 metre housebus called Fun4five. It integrated permaculture principles and they lived and travelled around New Zealand for five years. It was a wonderful example of Tiny House living. Andrew has a strong interest in his community being an active member and instigator of COSH Motueka, which is a local time bank and alternative currency initiative.

Sustainabilty Options

Sustainability Options is an altruistic business, working for the good of others.  They give free, good, trustworthy advice about sustainable living solutions for new builds, renovations and resource efficiency.  Their mission is to share knowledge with as many homes as they can, helping the community, the environment and future generations.  Phil Gregg has a young family, a history of business entrepreneurship and is an accredited home performance advisor.  His brother Nik comes from a corporate management background, has lead a number of charitable organisations and wants to leave his family of teenagers a world to be proud of. Their associate Jo Wills has been involved in a number of sustainability focused organisations including Trade Aid and together with Nik, established the Tauranga Curtain Bank.  Jo and her partner have 8 bikes, 1 cat and love to go searching for waterfalls. Nik, Phil and Jo are our presenters for the Natural Structures  and Renewable Energy 

Marco and Tess Partridge

A local couple from the Bay of Plenty have a huge passion and interest for living simply. Marco is a qualified builder who is keen on recycling and using natural materials where possible. Tess has a Bachelor of Communications, majoring in Public Relations and Communication Management. She completed her PDC in 2011 and at present spends her time loving their son Tahl.

They came home to Tauranga in 2011 after traveling and wwoofing for a few years in Europe, Britain, Africa, Middle East, Thailand, India and Nepal. They realized how attractive it is to live with the land and in a way that frees them up from consumer culture. They recently spent four months at Koanga Institute where Marco completed an Appropriate Technology course.

On a journey of learning, they have just recently purchased a 12 acre property and are excited to put into practice the dreaming they have done, the knowledge and skills they’ve accumulated over the past few years.

In 2015 they started Crafty Gatherer, an artisanal craft company that encourages others to live more simply and get back to homesteading basics.

We visit Marco and Tess’s home to learn about cob buildings, container homes, bee hives, solar dehydrators, chook tractors, grey water systems, and broad forks for soil aeration.

Gisella  Warmenhoven

Gisella Warmenhoven will be sharing her knowledge with us about trees and pruning. She has been a professional tree pruner for over 30 years now and has taught many pruning workshops all over New Zealand . She is also a trained landscaper, and partnered in a                  co-operative landscaping business in Germany before moving to New Zealand.  She is passionate about growing her own food and has done so biodynamically for 25 years. She is the seed bank co-ordinator for Transition Towns Tauranga.

Landscaping and gardening can be very physical, Gisella is a trained Alexander Technique Teacher and Feldenkrais Method® Practitioner. Now she teaches people in the Bay of Plenty how to move, let go of pain and feel more balanced and energetic. [email protected],   www.feldenkrais.org.nz  and www.facebook.com/Feldenkrais.Tauranga

Brad Harding

Brad was born in Tauranga and has been on a journey towards food security since leaving school.  He is the former Gardens Manager of the Koanga Institute and is now Production Manager at Grow Food Instead, a small scale intensive market garden to support and educate young people in low socioeconomic communities.  In December 2014, Brad returned to the Bay of Plenty with his wife Rachel and their two children.  They now find themselves, their rabbits, ducks and chickens, on an overgrown hectare where the blackberry and kikuyu is gradually being cleared to make way for gardens, food forests and animal forage.

Brad is passionate about permaculture design; alternate technologies: bio char, solar ovens, rocket stoves; growing nutrient dense food, teaching people to make good compost, and biointensive gardening.  Brad leads the Permaculture Garden Design module.

Andrew Martin

Andrew is an independent analyst, thinker, author and Director of Rethink Consulting.  He publishes his own blog, Oneness Publishing, which examines some of the broader issues we face in economics, finance, energy and environmental matters. He has been studying, working and practicing permaculture for several years, having earned his PDC with Geoff Lawton.  He has an extensive world wide community of permaculture and sustainability connections and is currently building his consulting business which focuses on community resilience.   He is the architect and developer of the Martin Resilience Index (MRI) and Martin Resilience Assessment (MRA) tools which help build resilience for local communities. Andrew lives locally in the Bay and is happy to share his knowledge and experience with others.

Cherryle Prew

Cherryle Prew is the owner and manager of Soil Foodweb New Zealand  and has recently relocated to Waihi.

“I have always been interested in growing things.  From about the age of 5 or 6,  I often used to help with weeding and can remember having to take the kitchen scraps up to the compost heap.”

“My love of growing things was re ignited when I bought a kiwifruit orchard in Te Puke where my family originated.  However I was stunned and horrified, when I discovered the chemical regime we were expected to follow to get a crop.   Broad spectrum pesticides, fungicides and herbicides; most applied every 28 days.  The neighbours warned us not to leave our washing on the line and shut the windows.  So much for the clean, green country side!  As far as I was concerned the only option was to go organic.  I joined all the grower groups, attended all the training courses  and read all the books I could lay my hands on.  I knew biological diversity was the key and that the diversity above ground influenced the diversity below ground, but where was it written?  I could have said I read it in the womans weekly for all the proof I had.”

“It was when I attended Dr Elaine Inghams workshop in Te Puna that I found the missing pieces.  I was so fascinated with what she had to say that I followed her to Crofts Harbour in Australia to hear her story again.  After that it was history.   She invited me to open the Soil Foodweb Laboratory in NZ which made perfect sense as this enabled us to measure that all important diversity. So here we are.”

Since opening Soil Foodweb NZ in 2003, Cherryle has worked with thousands of agricultural and horticultural growers throughout both islands to help them improve the health and productivity of their soils.  Cherryle will be leading our Living Soils Module.

Julia Sich

Julia Sich inherited a love of nature from her parents and grandparents who were and are keen gardeners. Julia’s passion is wildflowers and herbs or ‘weeds’ as her grandmother called them. She received an unusual 21st birthday present in the form of a prepared garden surrounded with hay-bales and a set of garden tools. She went on to study horticulture at Massey University completing a Diploma in Nursery Management with distinction. Later, she completed a BA majoring in Anthropology, wanting to learn more about people and especially their systems of healing. Julia worked at Weleda NZ in Havelock North as a gardener for 2.5 years.

Julia has years of experience sustainably growing food producing trees and plants in both rural and suburban environments. She has also become a skilled photographer taking all the photos for her book and website: “Julia’s Guide to Edible Weeds and Wild Green Smoothies,” www.juliasedibleweeds.com.

Julia regularly runs workshops teaching keen foragers all about edible weeds, those safe to eat and how to turn them into nutritious superfood green smoothies. Always researching and learning, Julia has completed an advanced Apprenticeship with Plant Rhythms in Piha Auckland, where she is experienced a deeper, intuitive connection with plants and their healing properties.

Julia earned her Permaculture Design Certificate with Plenty Permaculture in 2015. Julia is furthering her research into health through the GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) diet.

Trish Waugh

Trish started gardening when she was ten, captured by a fascination with herbs and their many uses. Trish completed a Bachelor of Horticulture and went on to become a very successful Landscape Designer for 30 years, culminating in a Gold award winning exhibit ‘100% New Zealand Ora Garden’ at Chelsea Flower Show in 2004.

A change in direction was in the wind and following a move to live more sustainably she eventually retired from landscape designing.  Trish completed her Permaculture Design Certificate in 2012 at Koanga Institute and shortly afterwards helped to start up the Permablitz movement in the Bay of Plenty.

She lives and gardens at Tarariki Pottery and Healing Centre with Michael O’Donnell and spends her time caring for the productive gardens, building splendid compost, making Rongoa with native and exotic plants, organising Permablitzes and stream restoration days.

Trish does all her designs by hand and loves sharing that skill with our participants.

Ailie Rundle 

Ailie grew up locally and loves the bountiful local produce we can grow and eat seasonally in the Bay of Plenty. She has a passion for the whole cycle of food production from gardening to seed saving, cooking, eating, preserving and composting. Ailie has had experience with Biodynamic gardening in Scotland, monoculture production and harvesting in local horticulture, floriculture and nursery work. She comes from a design background (BDes, Massey University, Wellington) and earned her Permaculture Design Certificate in 2015 with Plenty Permaculture. She is a full time mom of fabulous Mister William, and works as a graphic and web designer.

Ailie loves sharing her expertise in finding useful permaculture information on the internet and drawing designs on the computer.

Rose Tuffery

Facing necessary house repairs, Rose wanted more knowledge and control around repairs and building.

One night she happened to sit next to a woman who said, “Next week, I am going to build a natural home with bottle walls and you can come if you want.” Rose found herself loading her car with as many wine bottles as it would hold and off she went for a week of learning and building which turned into a summer of collaboration with a builder, the owner and a few workers. The materials were discovered on the land around them: trees, branches, grasses, manure, stones, clay and sand from the river.

For Rose, this started a passion of learning all she can about natural building and passing on what she’s learned to others. She earned her Certificate in Ecological Building and Design from the BBE Institute NZ in 2013, studied Tadelakt (polished lime plastering) at Sol Design with Ryan Chivers of Artesano Plastering in February 2015 and is a member of EBANZ (Earth Building Association of New Zealand). She has been a part of the Earthship Te Timatanga building project in mid 2015, refining her understanding of mud bricks, cob, and bottle walls with Rosa Henderson of Sculpted Earth, and of earth plastering with Verena Maeder of Solid Earth NZ.  See her art here.