Page 19 - C.A.L.L. #33 - Winter 2010/2011

Founder-member Christobel Munson, writing this piece especially for C.A.L.L., tells us
about life in Jindibah Community, overlooking Byron Bay, NSW, Australia

In 1994, when my partner Christopher Sanderson and I moved to a rural area near Byron Bay
on Australia’s east coast, we realised it would be far more fun to create a community to share
with like-minded friends than trying to manage five acres by ourselves.
So with two other couples, we bought a 113-acre (46ha) run-down dairy farm and created
Jindibah – an intentional community for 12 households. It is more fun – but working things out
with other people rather than making your own decisions as ‘king of your own castle’ is far
more complex and takes heaps more time.
We decided to set up the community focusing on the
‘triple bottom line’; that is, balancing the
environmental, the economic and social. The ‘social’ is
probably the most challenging – and rewarding.
House lots take up about 22 acres (9ha), with the
other 91 acres (37ha) divided between agricultural
land and areas where we are regenerating sub-
tropical native rainforest. Each year we plant and
maintain another 1,000 indigenous seedlings along our
creek and on the steeper rocky slopes less suitable
At a working bee to plant 1000 native for providing pasture for our herd of 25 beef cattle.
rainforest seedlings
Today, we have 22 adult lot owners aged between 31
and 74 who have a total of 13 school-age kids. Living onsite are 16 adults (including three
renters), and seven children between 4-15 years, with more houses currently under
construction.
To operate the community, we elect an executive committee each year, as well as eight work
groups. They cover Property Management; Farm Management and Infrastructure
Maintenance (eg the 1.8km of paved internal roads, bridges, cows, pasture, water supply);
Information Technology (website and wireless broadband network); Regeneration (We’ve
planted 7,305 trees to date needing fencing and
ongoing maintenance until they mature); Admin,
Book-keeping and Legal; Communications and
Relationships; Bushfire and Emergencies; and
Business Opportunities, Finance and Planning.
Every aspect of efficiently running the
community happens through these groups, five of
which have budgets to cover necessary
expenditure. Lot owners choose which of the A monthly breakfast in our community hall by Sleepy
Creek
groups they’d like to join and teams meet as
needed. A ‘Neighbourhood Management Plan’ sets out by-laws.
Ideally, the executive team convenes about every six weeks for a 90-minute meeting,
depending on how smoothly things are running. Informally, we meet more often. Each year we
hold about four externally facilitated half-day workshops to deal with interpersonal
relationships, learning more about each other and ourselves. We all try to get together once a
month to have a community breakfast by the creek, in the building built in the 1950s as a
dance hall for the local dairying community. It’s a great location for meetings, parties and
celebrations.
www.jindibah-community.org

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