Nick Ritar - educator, designer.

Nick grew up at Willandra, a tiny speck of a National Park (190 square kilometres) in the far western plains of NSW, where his dad was the park manager. Following this rather idyllic childhood, Nick eventually ended up in Newcastle, where he studied computer science and electrical engineering. His professional background is in production management for large arts organisations and as a ground-breaking educator in community technology and communication.

Nick has over 15 years experience in production, design and education for the community and cultural sectors, and has initiated many award-winning projects. As a co-founder of the seminal Australian arts festival Electrofringe in 1997, Nick soon began to combine his engineering background with arts and technology and went on to manage a Community Technology Centre from startup to NSW CTC of the year in 2001. By 2006 he was teaching masters students media and communications and developing online learning tools for Swinburne University.

He has worked as a system architect for mobile video solutions for Ericsson and Telstra, and is currently developing new on-site tools to allow the Catchment Management Authority of NSW to accurately record the impact of their re-generation and re-vegetation projects. He has, for the past 6 years, also had a successful artistic career as part of the collective Cicada .

Nick received his Permaculture Design + Teaching accreditation from Geoff Lawton at the Permaculture Research Institute since then Nick has focussed completely on Permaculture Design and Education.

 

Nick is currently integrating permaculture principles into the operations of his family's 1000 acre property Kirwin near Mudgee NSW, producing olives, lavender and stud sheep.  He is also developing Milkwood, a Permaculture demonstration site with his wife and business partner, Kirsten Bradley. He manages Milkwood Permaculture, a business that supplies educational courses and offers system design to both urban and rural clients and runs Milkwood.net - the online arm of the demonstration site that is Milkwood.

 

 

 

Kirsten Bradley - manager, convenor, designer.

Kirsten grew up in Kiama on the South Coast of NSW. As a kid she travelled widely throughout the many national parks and remote places of Australia with her family, and developed a fundamental reverence for the ecosystems of this unique country.  Her professional background is in the Arts, multimedia production and project management.

For the last 10 years she has co-ordinated, managed, produced and nurtured many projects from concept to production for a range of Australian organisations and Festivals. These include projects for the Australian Network for Art and Technology, Next Wave Festival, SBS, Adelaide Fringe and the Sustainable Living Festival.

Kirsten received her Permaculture Design + Teaching accreditation from the Permaculture Research Institute in 2006. Since this time Kirsten has been dividing her time between Permaculture Design and Education and her ongoing art practice , which investigates perceptions of nature within todays society.

Following her Permaculture accreditation, she moved from inner-city Melbourne to the Central West of NSW, to develop Milkwood, a Permaculture demonstration site with her husband and business partner, Nick Ritar. She now manages Milkwood Permaculture, a business that supplies educational courses and system design to both urban and rural clients. She also runs Milkwood.net - the online arm of the demonstration site that is Milkwood.

 

contact kirsten via email: kirsten [at] milkwood.net 

contact kirsten via phone: +61 2 6373 7763 (office) / 0412 714 884 (mobile)