Cob: experience is overrated -- an eight-year-old with a cookbook could do this stuff!

[Amanda Peck]

a) I'd guess you learned more from having an experienced person around than 
you thought you did.

b) might be able to set it up so that the "free" people could NOT go home 
with class notes, strictly on-the-job.  Other days as well.

c) after you write your--well-received--book you MIGHT be able to earn a 
living doing workshops.

d) there's a fair amount of resentment for the very expensive workshops, for 
the people who seem to by trying to build their house for free by charging 
people lots for the workshop, then adding on fees for food and minimal 
camping--no showers for instance--leads to resentment.

e) I'd also guess that the cob part is the least knowledge-intensive part of 
the building process.  Insulating foundations, wiring, planning for and 
installing plumbing, roofing considerations, how to make doors, get windows 
in so they do everything one wants them to do (and so on) might well be 
parts that take the most experience/knowledge.

....................
From: "Donna Strow" <dstrow at bcpl.net>

Dear Coblist Buddies,

I learned the value of experience when I went to a Natural Building
workshop.  Experience gives you clout, and it teaches you that ... there
isn't much more to be said for experience in Natural Building!!  The
workshop consisted of classes and practica.  The classes were instructive
but the practica were monotinous and hardly at all instructive.

Yet, because I participated in the practica, I now have the clout to tell my
family and my neighbors that, yes, I can do this, and, yes, I can teach them
how.  I also have the clout to tell them that there's little I can teach
them outside of a classroom...

Which is a real bummer, because I thought I was going to make a living
offering hands-on instruction workshops.  Now I'm wondering ... how can I do
this?  I'm not Tom Sawyer.  Can I ask my neighbors to *pay* to work on my
barn?  Might they value the experience more than I, such that  it would
actually be reasonable to charge them for the priviledge?

So perhaps I should charge for classroom instruction and offer free practica
with the caveat that I appreciate everyone's help and that, again,
experience is overrated and all they really need to do is take their class
notes home and build their own barns!

Donna Strow

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