Member Spotlight: Rachel Butler

Members are asked to answer some pre-set questions, letting us all get a bit more insight into the people who are behind Tiny House Community Bristol. THCB is made up of people of varying ages from a diverse range of backgrounds, bringing a variety of interests, skills and knowledge to our community.

This month we meet Rachel Butler...

Age: 54

From: Clevedon, North Somerset

Home for me now is: Greenbank, Bristol

What do you do as part of THCB?

I'm the founder, one of the Directors and one of the two internal Project Managers for our Sea Mills project. I'm also the leader of Mission Circle and Funding & Banking Circle.

What attracts you most to community-led housing?

Community-Led Housing represents many things to me that speak strongly to my passion for people power: re-empowering ourselves and taking back our agency for meeting our own needs together in community; remembering and re-discovering our social needs of living and cooperating together in small familiar groups; a way to use the best of our people-power to start overcoming the profiteering and land-banking that the big house developers' business models seem to demand; a way to journey back to the social co-regulation and resilience that we are all capable of together. I believe that Community-Led Housing holds the key to our resilience and adaptation in an increasingly uncertain future.

What do you feel passionate about at the moment?

The Circular Economy and how vital it is to get this going in the housing sector. We only have a carbon budget left for around 14k homes in the whole of the UK. Demonstrating how the perceived conflicts around land-use can be brought together and all addressed using the framework of the Regenerative Settlement, by James Shorten of TerraPermaGeo. It doesn't have to be housing OR, increasing biodiversity, OR food-growing, OR recreation etc, it can be all.

What's your favourite go-to meal to prepare when hosting friends?

Roasted veg with a tahini and lemon juice dressing.

What's your favourite green space to enjoy in Bristol?

The green, blue and brown corridor that is the Frome Valley Walkway, part of which runs through Snuff Mills and Stapleton to Eastville Park - an incredible and vital biodiversity artery in the city!

What's your favourite Bristol venue for socialising?

The Greenbank Pub in Easton

What's one book everyone would benefit from reading?

Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenburg and the companion workbook by Lucy Leu. Violence and coercion in our daily communication has become normalised. It's no wonder there is so much violence and war around the world.

If you were to host a workshop, what skill would you be capable of sharing with others?

How to facilitate small circles of people in exploring deeply democratic group decision-making and ensuring that all voices are heard. Otherwise known as Sociocracy.