2011 promises to have plenty of volunteers. From year to year the amount of volunteers has been raising because of the attractiveness of Estonia as well as the reason that we have introduced the euro. Additional increase is caused by the fact that WWOOF Estonia has not asked any registration fee from volunteers nor farmers. Our members have worked based on voluntariness cutting working and sleeping hours.

But times are changing - the members of WWOOF Estonia are getting older, priorities are changing and it has become evident that additional financial resources are needed to continue our work successfully locally and internationally, to enhance the quality of volunteers to register and so on. We have already encountered these arguments on several occasions and this time we decided that in year 2011 a fee for registration will be introduced.

Summary of year 2010

2010 was a year of planning, but with plenty of non-interference. The main activities of the existing system was operating and monitoring international developments. Indeed, in recent years a very sharp increase in the rise of alternative organizations similar to WWOOF has come up. However these organizations are not able to provide a connection between the farmer and the voluntaer and do not manage the information, but often the information about the farmers is copied from somewhere else. WWOOF Estonia stood up and gave our view in these developments2.

One trip to an organic farm was arranged this year. During one weekend necessary farms works were done. In addition, WWOOF Estonia was represented in Ecotrade held in Põltsamaa.

WWOOF ESTONIA NEWSLETTER

Spring 2011

By now 19 farms and more than 500 volunteers have joined WWOOF Estonia!

This time in the newsletter

A glimpse to year 2011 and an overview of year 2010

A glimpse to year 2011 and an overview of year 2010

Annual meeting 2011 and 4th birthday of WWOOF Estonia

Summary of WWOOF farms feedback 2010

Trip to Alt-Lauri farm, May 2010

Presentation in Põlva Ecofest

Wwoofing in Germany by Karin

WWOOF Estonia Christmas event in Esna

News flash

Annual meeting 2011 and 4th birthday of WWOOF Estonia

On one nice Saturday WWOOF Estonia gathered in Tallinn to celebrate the organization’s 4th birthday and conduct an annual meeting.

First, all the coordinators gave an overview of what their team had done during the last period – we introduced the WWOOF movement in Põlva Ecofair, sent out one newsletter, wrote an introduction about Estonia to international WWOOF Handbook, organized a summer trip to a WWOOF farm. We also asked feedback from our farms - you can read more about that from another article. Currently, we have over 500 volunteers and 19 farms.

Annual meeting affirmed new coordinators for the next period:

* Admin – Karin Kilk

* Public relations – Ann Muuga

* WWOOF hosts – Priit Pikk

* Wwoofers – Rita Jürmann (from May 1st)

A very important change for the new period is registration fee for volunteers. It will be 9 EUR and the volunteer will get access to hosts’ profiles for 2 years. If everything goes as scheduled, the fee will be taken from the 1st of May 2011. The decision about the fee was hard, but life has shown that without an income a NGO has difficulties operating – managing our website, meeting with each other (members live in different parts of Estonia), organizing trips to farms etc. Therefore there will be some changes in profile as well. We will put information concerning the fee on our website. If you have any detailed questions about the fee, please do not hesitate to contact us.

In annual meeting we also discussed when should we take our traditional summertrips to Estonian farms. If everything goes as planned, the trips will be in may, in August and in September. Detailed information comes to our website when plans are more specified.

It is time to summarize year 2010. We thank all the participating farms who engage in receiving volunteers! On the other hand, we thank and greet volunteers who devote their time to give a helping hand where needed! We wish You all brightness and strenght to your days!

Year 2010 was active for some WWOOF farms and calm for others. Volunteers visited 6 farms: Rätsepa, Orapera, Lepaniidi, Murese, Alliksaare and Proosa. The furthest volunteer Leah came to Rätsepa from USA Ohio. Besides her visited the farm Erkki from Tartu Estonia in March, in July Andrea from Germany and Tanya from Latvia. Another American was working in Orapera farm. Orapera also got help from two Estonian ladies Renata and Helme. Lepaniidi received helping hands from Estonia and elsewhere. At first in May there was a volunteer Ruth who stayed for two weeks and a second year in sequence came Estonian Maris who just started to like the place. Beside her worked in Lepaniidi another Estonian Madli after Midsummer Day. It seems that the farm has enchanted others too because French girl Elsa spent there almost a whole summer and American Susanne a month. Murese WWOOF year was brightened with Gemma from Holland and Susanne from Germany. As told by the farm, these women were very nice, Susanne also took an interest in handicraft and Gemma in folk music so they found time to visit Viljandi Folk Music festival. Susanne spent a week and half

in Murese and Gemma spent 5 days there. Last but not least there was a volunteer in Proosa working with soil.

WWOOF Estonia made its spring trip to Alt-Lauri farm in Rõuge, Võru. The Farm deals with growing eco-vegetables. Farm`s hostess Kaja Keskküla is an active woman who also provides Tartu households with local goods. We helped in clearing the fields and hoeing. Gathering old plastic pieces from the ground made us recognize once again that every action has an impact to our mother Earth. Ignorance or lack of knowledge about the Earth is what makes some people throw their rubbish just outside or bury it under the soil. This may be a great obstacle for a household who follows nature protection. In exchange for work we were indulged with delicious dishes. It was the only trip for WWOOF Estonia last year. We hope that the present year brings great new possibilities to sting our fingers in the ground.

One WWOOF farm decided to skip receiving volunteers during year 2010 because of a increase in family members. We wish Goodkaarma luck and happiness!

We heard that some farms are worried about the language

barrier with foreign volunteers. Sometimes volunteers also worry if they understand the tasks correctly when they have to use body-language and a dictionary. So to comfort you we can say that these feelings are mutual. We encourage you to try anyway, even many times because the joy that comes from jointly made work is almost always bigger than the initial fear! Additionally we encourage farms to contact WWOOF if they need extra-help during some period because we can publish your wish in our home page.

The Sun is taking higher rounds already and it is time to start with spring work and prepare for new volunteers who give a helping hand. This kind of cultural exchange is exciting for both participating sides!

WWOOF ESTONIA NEWSLETTER

Spring 2011

Summary of WWOOF farms feedback 2010

Another WWOOF Estonia trip was taken and the cabbage-fields of Alt-Lauri farm were cultivated, also coriander, dill and sourdock weed were planted. Our group was quite big - Teet, Geli, Priit, Liis, Marje, Tuuli, Ann, Ieva and a dark-skinned Spaniard whos name was...

Between hard work we were offered delicious dishes. For breakfast we had porridge, sandwiches, scrambled eggs and of course good coffee with milk. Tasty food from the local garden and conserves from the last year were served for lunch. It felt good to comment and give recommendations for future development.

Great courtesy to Alt-Lauri farm for welcoming us and making sure that our stay was comfortable. Thank you for the good tips and for the great weather :)

Trip to Alt-Lauri farm, May 2010

Presentation in Põlva Ecofest

Once again Ecofest, a seminar Profilt-Profile took place in Põlvamaa county on the 16th of August 2010. A presentatsion of WWOOF Estonia was also given by one of our representatives.

Among other issues, such as youth employment in the environmental sector, environmental awareness about energy, radiation around us, WWOOF representative Priit gave a presentation titled “The first steps in direction to an environmentally friendly workplace.”

The presentation emphasized how easy it is for each one of us to learn and gain experience in environmentally conscious lifestyle. Through WWOOF people find organic farmers whose

lifestyle is to live in an environmentally responsible manner, and being one with nature, rather than fighting against it.

Questions from the enthusiasts were mainly related to the different opportunities/activities on organic farms in Estonia, and the opportunities of go wwoofing abroad. Also, participants were interested in how our organization works and how it is financed. That last one was the most difficult question:)

The report is publicly accessible for all from our homepage

Wwoofing in Germany by Karin

The following story tells about an Easter holiday in the beautiful area of Germany - Swarzwald in Baden-Württemberg. It is situated 800 km from Berlin, direction south-west. The main interest point of Schwarzwald is without doubt the little Freiburg town with 200 000 inhabitants located in the “golden triangel” where Germany, Switzerland and France meet. In addition to visiting this town there was a certain plan to to visit one of the farms of WWOOF Germany. On early morning of a saturday we took a train from Freiburg to lake Schluchsee and from there a bus to St. Blasian. What a wonderful scent of the mountains! The snow had not entirely melted, therefore the air was fresh and crispy. We bought an Easter bread from a local bacery as a present for the farm and walked up to the mountins towards the picturesque farm area.

Finally through rain and sun we got there, knocked on the door, but nobody answered... not to count

the coats, cows, horses, hen and cats:) So we sat for an hour in the sun and enjoyed the quiet saturday. Finally the hosts appeared and we were invited for lunch. What a delicious farm food, including home-made cheese and sausages. Stomach full, we changed clothes and got off to do some work.

The first assignement was to get the coat-poo together with hay out of the barn. It took half an hour for me and Laura. It was fun and not at all stinky. We felt how our health improved! After that we painted the walls of a dairy house with a lime-paint. None of those jobs was very difficult, therefore we were keen to do something else. The farm family held us back that we should not do too much, that there would be something for tomorrow as well. So we sat again down to the table and started to have dinner... This time an organic wine was also on the table. The family was very joyful and opened and we talked about this and that. We also talked about the wwoof movement and they let us know how satisfied they were with joining WWOOF Germany.

On sunday we moved our joints that were sick from the office-work a bit more - we layd some manure on the field and took some dried tree branches to the forest with the help of horses. Super! Before leaving the farm we gathered once again around the lunch table and had a rich homey meal. The housewife and -man Martina and Holger stayed and enjoyed the sunny sunday and took care of the horses. There is also Oliver, the brother of Holger, living in the farm and 2 teenager sons (Elias and Johannes), but the boys spent the Easter at grandmothers. When reaching back to Freiburg we felt as if we had been already weeks away from home - visiting this farm was a truely relaxing experience!

On the 19th of December wwoof members gathered in Esna to celebrate traditionally the upcoming holidays, to enjoy the company and exchange gifts. The weather was perfect for going to the country. Right at the beginning the mettlesome housewife warmed up some apple-juice with cinnamon. Meanwhile speedy hands made gingerbreads of homemade dough. The dough was so tasty that it was sad to put it into the oven.

After the first stories had been told and gingerbreads had been tasted, we went to check out Aita’s lovely goats. One was more beautiful than the other. Soon there is a hope to taste homemade goat-cheese, but a lot of work has to be done before.

Back at house we warmed up glogg and put black-pudding with sauerkraut into oven. Meantime Meeli and Raivo from Eesti taluõliühistu had come to visit Aita. I t was nice, because we gathered many good thoughts about how to help famers more with our organisation.

After eating we went to back room and soon came Santa! Everyone read a poem and Santa dealed out jam, honey and juice and everyone’s faces shined.

Soon the last bus leaved and we had to leave behind idyllic home in beautiful and snowy Esna.

* 25-29 of May is international WWOOF Europe meeting in Czech, where hopefully someone from WWOOF Estonia can take part in.

* WWOOF Estonia takes part in European volunteers tour. On 6th and 7th of May WWOOF Estonia is represented in Nokia concert hall. It is free on charge, so please come to visit!

WWOOF ESTONIA NEWSLETTER

Spring 2011

WWOOF Estonia Christmas event in Esna

News flash