First Council Meeting Benoni

Today’s visit began with a design crit with Hannah and the entire group in Anthony’s chess academy container-we sat on miniature plastic chairs and tables. Before this crit we were of the idea that we would do an overall theoretical site plan and detail up the strategically placed chess board NOW so construction could start this week. The crit threw us a bit as it brought a gargantuan putt putt agenda into the equation. Possibly now two or three people can work on putt putt and the rest on the chess board. I am scared that we will not finish-after all, I have taken 3 months to build a piece of furniture and we have 5 weeks left. I want to avoid using heavy wet materials like bricks or concrete- I now feel that the chess board should be almost movable and use very light materials for construction. After lunch and after much protest I was voted by my group to go with Hannah, Catherine and Guy to a meeting at the Benoni Council to discuss our intervention with a room full of bureaucrats. The meeting was great- made me understand the philosophy of graffiti- its all about avoiding meetings to organise more meetings to plan an event like this, and instead JUST DOING IT. I am glad we have a major stakeholder in our project living on site in Anthony who makes the project a lot more real- we know that however or wherever the chess board is designed/ built, it will be used.