Ruth Ballard
Here we are -- living in a tiny community in a small community tucked away on the tip of a peninsula that’s on the tip of another peninsula.  We’re out there – literally and figuratively.  What brought a city girl (okay, girl is a relative term) out here to the end of world?  Hmmm …. people, community, big trees, old brick buildings, electric cars, radical ideas, fresh veggies, sandy beaches, coyotes, great restaurants, old hippies, an indie movie theater, festivals and parades.  But mostly, it was an idea that a group of people could come together to build a community in love and trust.  We could love the earth and its creatures and do our best to take care of these gifts and we could trust each other enough to take a giant leap into the unknown.  How’s that working for us?  We learn and struggle, make mistakes, love and help each other and have faith.  I couldn’t ask for more. 

Before joining Port Townsend EcoVillage in mid-2005, I had been a member of Winslow Cohousing Group on Bainbridge Island for nearly 7 years.  I learned so much about working in community there, especially gaining skills in consensus.  The community and people at WCG are still near and dear to my heart. 

The move to Port Townsend was not away from WCG, but towards the more rural setting of Port Townsend and the opportunity to have a hand in shaping a way of life from the ground up.  Learning about permaculture, participating in natural building workshops, non-violent communication skill-building and diversity training are just a few of the opportunities I have experienced in the past couple of years.   Looking back on my start in a large family living in a one-mile square section of Boston, I don’t think there have been many times I have not lived in community.  And since my WCG experience, there’s no way I would ever consider anything but a community life. 

So to get back to that “city girl” comment.  It’s been a while since I could reasonably be called a girl.  I do remember seeing the Beatles live in Boston when I was 13 years old, but I’m young at heart and full of mischief.  I have two wonderful daughters in their late 20’s who are the pride and joy of my life.  I have fulfilling work in a great town full of interesting and lovely people.  I am in good health.  I have a community.  I am blessed beyond all reckoning.  I am full of gratitude. 

Laurence Cole
Laurence is a 64 year old grandpa who dwells in a small cabin at the PTEV, and loves living with and sharing amenities with the rest of the current on-sight community. He has lived in numerous cooperative communities in his life, and finds those experiences helpful in recognizing what a uniquely skillful, compassionate and creative bunch of folks have been drawn to this endeavor. Laurence loves to sing and write songs, (often leading songs at our meetings,) and is the founding director of PT Songlines community choir. He also has a massage practice, specializing in accupressure and shiatsu. He has practiced T'ai Chi for over forty years, and enjoys moving slowly, and participating in patient natural processes, particularly the making of compost. (His compost won "Best in Class" at this year's county fair.) He also loves designing and building beautiful furniture, and toys for his grandchildren, with whom he really loves to go camping. 

Helen Kolff
Helen is an educator and environmental activist.  She has taught high school Sociology, been a family planning educator with Planned Parenthood, helped organize the Beyond War peace movement in Seattle, volunteered as a mediator, planned conferences, written a book on wildflowers of the Peruvian Andes, and spent a lot of time with her husband, Kees, raising their two children.  Currently, she spends her time painting, biking, hiking, doing environmental education through the Northwest Earth Institute, serving on the board of her Unitarian Fellowship, teaching Nonviolent Communication, and working to make the Port Townsend EcoVillage a reality.   

Kees Kolff
Kees is a retired Pediatrician, with experience in public health.  After serving 17 years as Medical Director for an Hispanic Community Health Center (SeaMar) headquartered in Seattle, he and his wife Helen volunteered in the Peruvian Andes for over a year.  They returned determined to live more sustainably and bought the 7 acres that is now the Port Townsend EcoVillage.  Kees loves to sing, hike and backcountry ski.  His greatest passion now is exploring how we can reduce our ecological footprints, both individually and collectively, through intentional community development.  He has served as President of Jefferson Land Trust as well as Mayor of Port Townsend.  In 2000, Kees and Helen lost their son Adam, who built the first earth-bermed passive solar “bedroom” at the ecovillage. Their daughter Adri and her husband Randy live in Seattle, fortunately not too far away.  Kees was born in the Netherlands, and his first name (pronounced “Case”) is the official Dutch nickname for Cornelis.

Terri Miller
Terri moved 12 times between the ages of six and seventeen (and she was not a military brat).  She has lived in four states and a foreign country.  She eventually had a houseboat built so she could take her home with her.  On her first visit to Port Townsend in 1984 she felt like she was coming home.  It took Terri over 20 years, but she has finally made it home.  As an adult, she has lived in numerous shared housing situations, including a co-housing community for about five years.  Terri thought she had died and gone to heaven when she read the PTEV’s vision statement and saw the words consensus, social justice, nonviolent communication, and permaculture.  Some of her other passions are children, poetry, garlic, walking/hiking, reading, dancing ...  Maybe she is quietly passionate about too many things to list.  One of her favorite pastimes is laughing with her partner, Jim.  She is the extra Momma to Clara and the back me up parent for Raven (Jim’s daughter).  Terri earns money as a Family Educator with Head Start, though she has had a number of career incarnations over the years.

Margaret Moore
Margaret is a retired radical, living frugally and simply in her small straw bale and cob home on south Whidbey Island. In her earlier life she raised four children and worked as both a social worker and massage therapist.

As an older woman she attempts to control her 1/3 acre yard (crazy gardener!), to be active on issues of peace and justice, to play the piano for the Waldorf  Eurhythmy, to lead alternatives to Violence Workshops at the Monroe prisons, to teach and practice NVC and, of course, to be a doting grandmother. Plus a daily nap.

Out of her concern for the Earth and its creatures, she is passionate about the need for models of sustainability such as the PTEV, where she is planning to move soon.

Marc Weinblatt
Marc is a dedicated father and part-time homeschooler of two beautiful boys – Shae, age 7 and Orion, age 5.   Also a dedicated communitarian, he has been exploring, studying, and/or living in intentional community since he was 11 years old.  In his work life, Marc has been a professional educator, theatre artist, activist, and workshop facilitator since 1980 having extensive experience with both adults and youth.  He is Founder and Director of the Mandala Center for Change (www.mandalaforchange.com) and an internationally recognized leader in the use of Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed.  Marc regularly facilitates community dialogue events in a wide variety of contexts across the U.S. and abroad -- working with diverse communities ranging from homeless youth to police to academics to refugees in Azerbaijan and, in the fall of 2007, NGO workers in South Africa.   He is committed to bringing a deep sense of spirit and humanity into social justice work as well as to all aspects of his life.  The flexibility of his work allows him to do crazy stuff like build an ecovillage and to actively raise his children.  Most days, he can be found happily playing baseball, making music, or reading Harry Potter with his family.