GROWLing into 2015

First of all, I wish every one of you a happy 2015, where the pressure of growth (or to grow) does not occupy all the spaces and times for joyful conviviality!

We begin this year with a lot of exciting news regarding our GROWL network. I will not go into extensive details, but rather give you some highlights that hopefully will make you jump into this platform and start collaborating in the production of degrowth education materials, or simply to interact with other fellows!

International course applications

The selection procedure for the GROWL international courses in 2015 is still not completed. We have had over 150 (international) applications and having all 9 partners agree on who to send abroad and who to host on each course has revealed to be quite a task!

Each partner will contact the applicants of their own country as soon as the places are confirmed. If you are not contacted until the end of the month, please complain!

For now - and because GROWL is much more than just attending courses - we have added all of you who applied to international courses to this platform and space (if you are new, you should have received login information per e-mail a while ago; if you don't know your access credentials click here to request again). Use this platform to collaborate on the development of materials, get in contact with others, offer your help, or just look around to get inspired.

Website has been redesigned

Me and @Wojtek have been trying to improve the user experience with the GROWL site. We did a few changes to reduce the complicated structure and make it more attractive to visiting users, as well as to active collaborators. New sections (like this blog) have been added to improve our communication.

We are still working on it and our hands, fingers and brains are limited, so we welcome anyone willing to help :)

Training materials have been "open-sourced"

Until now we have been working on more or less closed doors on the production of training materials. Despite our will to produce open knowledge, we were not clear on the form, structure and content of the modules and did not really have a good enough structure to present to a non-engaged people. Well, it's still not perfect, but some of these modules start to gain form

Scrum sprints and peer production of modules

We use an agile project development methodology called "Scrum" to collaboratively work on the materials. @Eleftheria is working on a short presentation that explains in a very simple way how it works, but you can also find a lot of information about it on the net.

We have made a few monthly sprints until now, but now we want to open and invite the larger GROWL community to also take part. The quality of the developed modules depends largely on your engagement, so please consider taking the time to join the next sprint planning meeting on Tuesday!

That's all for now. Feel free to leave your comments and remarks on this post. Or to write to the international office if you have any doubts, questions or concerns.

And, for those that are receiving their first mail from GROWL - welcome to our community!