[Cob] Workshop costs

[Amanda Peck]

It's perfectly true that those workshops sound horrendously expensive.  
Especially if they are hundreds of miles away.  Especially if, like me, you 
are burdened by lots of friendly animals.

There have been a few people who thought that their house could be REALLY 
free if they held workshops for everything.  The story in some magazine five 
years ago or so had the people who tried this really really disappointed.  
These guys, whoever they were, were leading the workshops on their own 
house.  It strikes me that that might be a bad idea--one might be burdened 
by an inability to see the forest for the trees.

By the way, it looks as if most of the high-dollar workshop leaders require 
you to have gone to at least somebody's real workshop--not just helped a 
neighbor stack bales--before they will come to the one that you are hosting. 
  It makes sense to me.  Give one a good sense of what kind of organization 
is required, what at least some of the potential problems are, how much you 
can expect to have done, etc.

I'd want the workshop leader--whether I was hosting or just paying my money 
to go--to be someone who came with pretty good credentials.  Not necessarily 
a (THE?) book, but it would be nice to see a building, at least pictures, 
talk to someone who had been at a previous workshop with or led by the 
leader.

But by going to workshops you are looking for experience for yourself.  And 
inspiration, and a support group, and how to avoid expensive mistakes, all 
stuff that will cut down or eliminate your hiring people to do the work, or 
at minimum give you the ability to oversee the people you do have to hire.

The experienced log cabin guy who worked for me last year charged $10 an 
hour if the job came with a place to stay.  He said it would be $18 or more 
if he had had to rent something.  Probably more than that if he'd hired a 
helper, not including the price of the helper.   So a full weeks worth of 
just him--he alternated between staying at my treehouse (he built it) and 
his brother's house up the road--ran $400 (for better or worse he usually 
didn't work full time).  This is in an area where part-time for 6-8 bucks an 
hour is considered good money.

Running the numbers this way makes the costs of the workshops sound a lot 
more reasonable.

_________________________________________________________________
Check out Election 2004 for up-to-date election news, plus voter tools and 
more! http://special.msn.com/msn/election2004.armx