Our current organising team is Ian Hare, Claudia Marcos Sanchez Manrique, Alex Toogood, Chris Taylor, Maria Fijalkowski, and Adrian Sinclair.
Ian Hare (he/him)
Some people dream of a better world through poetry, art, and music. Ian prefers to work on the details—project plans, policies, spreadsheets, and negotiated agreements. Previously a research resident at Braziers Park, where he co-organised the first UK Communities Conference, he has visited over 20 communities, including a three-month stay at Tamera in Portugal. He is inspired by utopian fiction (e.g., Piercy and le Guin) and by early communitarians like the Diggers.
Outside the communities movement, Ian holds a PhD in philosophy of psychiatry. He finds community both rewarding and challenging, but believes life is most worth living when shared.
Claudia Marcos Sánchez Manrique (she-they/her-them)
Born and raised in Peru, Claudia has been living in ecovillages, cohousing, and intentional communities in South America and Europe for the last 5 years. They previously worked in social programs in NGOs and government departments in Peru looking to generate equal opportunities for people living in communities in vulnerable situations.
They are interested in spiritual development, inner exploration, and healing processes. In the last few years, they have started to work with movement, performance, singing, arts and crafts, and all sorts of tools that allow them to understand and express their feelings. For them, community living (even all the complexity and challenges it presents) is Sumak Kawsay (Quechua language), where sumak refers to the ideal and beautiful fulfillment of all beings on the planet, and kawsay means “life,” a life with dignity, plenitude, balance, and harmony.
Alex Toogood (He-they/him-them)
Alex Toogood is a resident at Tinkers Bubble off-grid community in South Somerset, where they are involved in a variety of aspects of fossil-fuel-free land management. Before moving to Tinkers Bubble, they have volunteered and stayed in various land-based and spiritual communities in the UK, including spending a year as a lay guest in the Thai Forest Buddhist monasteries and time with Buddhafield.
They are interested in a earthy, lived spirituality, expressed through our connection with the land, including food and fuel production. They often find community life both frustrating and hopeful, and have a conviction of the necessity of this way of living, as we discover ourselves through relationship and experiment in what it means to be human in healthier ways.
Chris Taylor (he/him)
I have lived at Cannon Frome Court for nearly six years. It’s been a steep learning curve (which is why I joined!). I really enjoy the social aspects of community life and especially working together on the land.
I’m learning incredible amounts about growing food, caring for the ecology and working collaboratively. Overall it’s a joy! When I’m not working on the farm I’m writing poetry, practicing tai chi or holding transformative spaces for young people.
Maria Fijalkowski (she-they/her-them)
Quite displeased with just about every way the modern world beats us up, like many of us, I (Maria, she, they, renter) care about people, life and a place to live without genocide, food scarcity or planning permission, for everyone.
Some of the tools I work with include performance, clowning, tight-knit communities, bravery, madness, food, writing, words, culture and worldbuilding.
My most fervent wish is to grow old on land I belong to, in a garden tended by hundreds. I reckon there’s much to learn and do and invent before that happens!
At any given point you can find me about London carrying with me the memories of olive trees, oak woods and vineyards, a subterranean ocean of joy and rage and one unfolding spinning twisting prism of colour, held lightly.
Adrian Sinclair (he/him)
Adrian lives at On the Brink Cohousing Community in Sheffield and has long been involved in community arts work, currently running UNION—a training programme for artists and activists across the North of England www.unionarts.org.uk
We are working in cooperation with Diggers and Dreamers.