Endeavour’s full time Sustainable New Construction program always attracts a diverse group of students, and 2016 is certainly no exception! People come from all across Canada and around the world to spend six months focused on the theory and the practice of building as sustainably as possible. Together we spend time in the classroom, on the job site, on field trips and with guest instructors.

We’d like to introduce you to the class by letting them introduce themselves to you:

Claire Clements – Claire is a wildlife film maker from Australia/New Zealand/Ireland.. who finds it hard to just pick one country to be from. She loves animals more than people, dogs more than cats and mountains more than beaches where she rides her inflatable kayak 2 person. Her current favorite food is Canadian wild rice even though its not rice and takes a ridiculous amount of time to cook. Claire’s hobbies include buying random pieces of land around the world, collecting earrings and any type of game or sport she is likely to win because she is unfortunately not gracious in defeat.

Her past times (for which she usually gets paid for – yay!) include filming incredible wildlife such as Asian otters and colugos (look them up!), narrowly avoiding death by natural disasters – 1 volcano, 2 earthquakes, and counting and dreaming up ideas for new films.

Claire believes strongly in changing the way we live – becoming more sustainable (climate change is real!) and not destroying any more of the planet or animal species. She plans to build a sustainable house in New Zealand, make a documentary about it and then see what happens next…

Alan Cundall –

Hometown: Anywhere, Earth
Ambitions: Architect, Book Illustrator, Peace Activist
Favorite foods: Salmon, Chicken Roti, Cranberry Sauce.

Philosophy of life: Let your vision be world-embracing
Favorite pastimes: Running through hills and valleys, Watching “Manufactured Landscapes”, doodling in class since grade one.
Hobbies: Running, Biking, Swimming, Gardening, Drawing, Singing, Using hand drills
Favourite quote about sustainability: “Think globally, act locally”

Funny quirk: Has an awesome, seldom heard Scottish accent

Alastair Day – On reaching 30, Alastair felt like a change. He left the comfort of the boat yard in Gloucester docks and landed a job on a 100m super yacht. By the way, you can rent a luxury boat at newport beach boat rental. It soon became apparent that the title of carpenter didn’t involve any woodwork and consisted of hours of cleaning. U.S. Bank provides flexible boat financing to purchase or refinance new or used boats. Borrowers who have struggled with boat financing may have already found out there are so many restrictions when it comes to traditional boat financing. For example, lenders will only finance specific types of boats, including many conditions which limit what the boat loan can be used for. Undeterred and two fun filled years later he decided to leave the yachting world and seek some adventure in the form of sailboat Benguela. Leaky and the bilges filled with diesel she headed out into the Atlantic. Three months later with a large, surprisingly, red beard Alastair and the crew sailed into Cape Town. After climbing Tabletop Mountain and visiting a Franschhoeks’ he quickly fell in love with another 1980s road bike and flew back to the British Isles. Greeted by a bale of hay and a herd of long horn cattle in need of feeding it was time for another challenge. A seed had been planted through prior periods of volunteering on straw bale / timber frame projects and a desire to become more knowledgeable in these areas arose. An interest in tiny homes, timber frame and semi subsistent living was explored whilst running a pop up yurt making business. On selling his last yurt he ventured to Canada to study with Endeavour. Thoroughly enjoying both the practical and theoretical side to the course Alastair looks forward to more sustainable building projects in the future.

Antoine DesRochers – Sup everyone, my name is Antoine DesRochers and I was born and raised in l’Acadie, a small town in Quebec, Canada. I came to the Endeavour Centre to develop an important project for me; building a village only from the material of the land where it will rise with my friends and family. Coming here was an important step for me that this quote from Terence Mckenna illustrates well:

“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.”

Peace!

Oh and I love my mom’s food.

Erin McLaine – Growing up on PEI Erin had lots of experience building houses out of twigs and snow banks, but these days you can find her trying to figure out how to make them last a little bit longer.

She’s a travel junkie who wouldn’t want to live without brownies or pizza, and fantasizes about owning a menagerie of primates and canines where she can use her creepy animal voice all day long.

She’ll never understand any of your pop culture references but will make any kind of art or food with you and will be pretty competitive if you challenge her to a sports duel.

She believes that without gorilla, there will be no hope for man. 

Hugh Cunningham – Hi, my name is Hugh Cunningham. I am from the small town of Gananoque Ontario but Peterborough has been my home for the last seven years. I have spent a lot of my adult life as a canoe trip guide and outdoor educator. I love being in the outdoors in any way – especially canoeing, hiking, and cross country skiing. I have a deep appreciation of the natural world and I think that it is vital that we do what we can to keep it healthy.   I have been thinking of a career in building for the past couple of years but I wanted to work with sustainable materials and techniques. I first heard about the Endeavour Centre from a friend who had taken the Sustainable New Construction course in the past and it sounded like exactly what I had been searching for. Now that I am in the middle of a build with the Endeavour Centre I know that I will get the knowledge and skills that I need to become a sustainable builder.   If you want to capture my philosophy through a quote, I like this one: “What is the use of a house if you don’t have a decent planet to put it on?” – Henry David Thoreau

Jubokafloka , aka Jube-Jube, aka Julia Cicciarella – My name is Julia Cicciarella and i was born and raised in Newtonville ON, Canada. I am currently enrolled in the SNC ’16 class and i’m having an amazing experience. One of my favorite quotes about sustainability is: live simply so others can simply live. My philosophy of life is to keep learning, exploring and experiencing, my mother always told me be a moving target.

You can often see me folding pieces of paper, bending paper clips or tapping my foot when seated; i have a hard time staying still. I love to travel and meet new people anywhere i go. I also like to long board and play soccer with any free time i can find. I do not have a specific food i like, but rather focus on enjoying the company that gathers around to eat.

My ambitions are in a constant flux, changing almost every week, however two concrete ones I have had for some time now are to build my own house and to travel to every continent…at least once!

Julia Schubert – Hey! My name is Julia, or Jules, as there is more than one Julia in the program this year 😉 I am from a small town in Germany, but I have a big heart. Whenever we talk about sustainable building materials that are from Germany, I wave my little imaginary German flag (I get to wave it a lot).

The best thing in the world is eating mangoes and solving the world’s problems in a hammock, or maybe just reading.

I  jumped right into the program without any prior experience, and it has been great! Learning to use power tools and designing beautiful natural homes, and not just houses, working in a team and living in a community (20 people on a farm! Sometimes crazy but the pingpong tournaments and smores on the bonfire are amazing!)

“Logic will bring you from a to b. Imagination will take you everywhere”- Albert Einstein

Let’s save the world and build sustainably!

Kristof Wittstock –
Hometown: Vienna, Austria
Ambitions: make an impact, live life as full as possible and let go of shit that holds me back.
Favorite foods: Everything Indian, Everything…almost.

Philosophy of life:  We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.

Favorite pastimes: Yes

Hobbies: Hiking, Playing Guitar, Motorbikes, Axe throwing lately, Origami, Flower arrangements, Knitting, Dwarf throwing, Poetry, Line Dancing, Mud Wrestling, Public cuddling
Favourite quote about sustainability: ” Treat the earth well, it wasn’t given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children.”

Funny quirk: Yes

Mike O’Reilly – My name is Michael O’Reilly. I was born and raised in Stratford Ontario and currently live in London, not far from there, with my wife and our two children. I am fortunate to have the opportunity to learn at Endeavour from Chris, Jen, and Shane for this year’s Sustainable New Construction (SNC) program.

The reason I am here is to learn about sustainable building and to obtain some practical experience with the intention of, one day, providing a place where older adults can live their lives with dignity—in a comfortable, affordable, and healthy environment.

While I am not participating in class and on the site, I thoroughly enjoy making human connections, seeking live music, learning how to drum, drawing, and dreaming!

As far as favourite foods are concerned, I have no enemies—I’ll try just about anything once, and a good ol’ Western sandwich is generally ace!

I have a few quirks—one of which I will share with you now. It has been brought to my attention by my family that I adopt an accent while speaking with telemarketers and bill collectors on the phone.

When it comes to a philosophy of life, I like to reflect on a piece titled Desiderata that is generally credited to Max Ehrmann (sp?); otherwise, I know, I don’t want to be the richest guy in the graveyard!

With regard to sustainability in every facet of my life, I like to consider the following quote from the great law of the Iroquois Nation:

“In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”

 

Natalie Van Dreal –

Hometown: Salem, Oregon

Ambitions: to be a more kind, helpful human; to be a part of a movement that helps us to earn more time on this beautiful planet; to help encourage, design and build thriving, regenerative communities — and most importantly, to make this accessible to and possible for everyone.

Favorite foods: pizza, popcorn, pickles, avocados, radishes and dark chocolate with salted caramel.

Philosophy of life: In regards to the human condition, I believe that humans need to unlearn a lot and instead focus on learning things like how to practice more compassion, humility, and simplicity. We need to reconnect with and understand the value of all the processes and organisms on which we rely to exist. I also believe that by realizing that we are not the pinnacle of evolution, we can find more purpose and meaning in our lives, and we can take bigger steps toward the kind of change that could benefit the earth and all its beings.

Favorite pastimes: playing with, petting and nurturing animals; spending time with my friends and family; hiking, swimming, singing, dancing, and laughing; cloud, star and moon gazing.

Hobbies: writing, drawing, painting, wood-burning, organizing, and decorating (transforming and enhancing spaces to be more beautiful, inviting and functional).

Favorite quote about sustainability: “These people, they all got white tiled toilets and take big dirty craps like bears in the mountains, but it’s all washed away to convenient supervised sewers and nobody thinks about crap anymore.. or realize that their origins are shit and civet and scum of the sea. They spend all day washing their hands with creamy soaps they secretly want to eat in the bathroom.” – Jack Kerouac, Dharma Bums

Daniel Deza – Hello, my name is Daniel Deza. 33 years of age. I was born in Toronto, Ontario. And raised mostly in the countryside.

Well, my life has been through some major changes within the last few years, my personal wants and needs have transformed.

Entering the Endeavour course was one of those amazing choices I made to forever change the outcome of my future and to be prepared for my journey ahead.

When I caught wind of “ Ecological Communities “ ( Eco Communities ) during my personal time of transformation, I knew instantly that there was something very special about this movement in our current cycle of life….It called to me on many different levels. For a few years now it has been a dream of mine to grow old in an ecologically sustainable community.

I began my research, doing what I could to find workshops and courses to learn as much as I could about ecological/sustainable building, and who might be teaching these courses ?. My mind was racing to get my hands on the right source of information from the right teacher……..And one night, through a random internet search, my friend and I found the Endeavour Centre, and we quickly booked our tickets ( early bird special : ) ,Saturday and Sunday lecture, we couldn’t wait.

That was my first Endeavour workshop, “ build your own sustainable home “, and at the time had only briefly read about Chris and the course he designed. The Workshop blew us away…. along with the amount of usable, up-to-date, easy to understand  knowledge was by far the biggest asset for us, the ball didn’t just get rolling for us, it was canon balled. We had an idea where to start.

A few months had passed since my first workshop and was very excited to know about the six month Endeavour course!, there was still space left for a few students , I had a very big decision to make, and my faith was being exercised. I quit my full time job, enrolled in the Endeavour course, did a dance like Christopher Walken and said to myself…what the hell have I done !.?…

Thank you so much to our very in touch teachers at the Endeavour Centre: Chris, Jen, Shane, their beautiful friends, and their love for the earth. I want to thank my Amazing Mom ( The keeper of the keys ), my big brother, my sister, and my awesome friends for believing in my leap of faith. I love you all very much.

We’ve enjoyed working with this crew a great deal… they bring energy, enthusiasm and a good dose of humour to every day on the work site and in the classroom!