Since 2005 several community members have been coming together with the common aim of an education center to:
•    Increase opportunities for youth in the Findhorn Foundation and Community
•    Provide affordable short term accommodation
•    Offer more eco educational courses to the wider community and visitors
•    Provide extra workshop space
•    Create a center for the community made from whiskey barrels and other recycled and/or ecologically sustainable materials
•    Have a large scale co-operation project between Foundation and community
 
Various planning meetings have taken place-showing interest from the foundation trustees, local schools, organizations, NFA, Moray Art Center, NextGEN, the National Lottery, community members and more.

Below is an outline of the project as it stands today.

The Findhorn Eco Education Center is a multi purpose building that acts as an interactive demonstration center of sustainable living.

It is a co-operative project between organizations and people; its final legal manifestation is still to be confirmed.

Past options where to create a new organization or for NextGEN to be the legal body, both options are still viable. GEN Europe needs to wait around a legal issue before they can grant NextGEN permission to do this.

PURPOSE: To provide formal and informal education centered around sustainability and be a visitor’s center for the Findhorn Ecovillage
 
The Building:

The building would be an interactive demonstration center of sustainable living. 
It will be partly constructed of re-cycled materials that provide aesthetic beauty.
As an interactive demonstration center the elements and materials used to create it will be explicit and explained. These materials will be things like the insulation, dry and wet toilets, solar panels, heating systems, etc. The elements will be things like: local businesses and organizations (waste busters); money (economics, Eco’s, L.E.T.S); GEN; the Findhorn Foundation and Community (people).

To give the holistic picture it will be explained how the sewerage leads to the living machine, the energy comes from the windmills, where the recycling is taken to, etc.
There will also be a small garden giving the basics of ecology related to the immediate environment, with a Permaculture design explaining the basics of Permaculture. It is hoped to include a meditation area to emphasize sustainability inside and out.
Each whiskey barrel will express different parts of the Findhorn Ecovillage and aspects of sustainability; the center space will primarily be a clear multi functional workshop space.

A possible first step is to acquire old railway sleeper carriages and renovate them to be ecologically sound including in the design many aspects mentioned above. They will provide affordable accommodation as a youth hostile does and for individuals and groups on courses or using the center.

As to seeing this project come alive and expand it needs the energy of individuals to commit to taking it on and run it when set up. It also needs people willing to create and or hold courses; work with school children and people of all ages around the issue of sustainability; educate our own community, etc.

In the past we brainstormed on: courses community members want to create and have the skills to hold; Foundation courses that could be held in the centre; local and international organizations that would want to utilize the space and resources. There has been much energy in various directions, an application nearly completed for lottery funding and it now seems the time to reflect and reground this project.

Also, NextGEN is looking for a home in Europe and a way to inspire this community to share its knowledge from a different level and get the Findhorn Community involved in NextGEN.

The NFA (community) is expressing a need for a visitor center, the Findhorn Foundation has a need for more workshop space.

Below are the Foundations strategic directions this center could aid:

1. Strengthen our culture of joyful service.
- increase our focus on personal sustainability, personal responsibility, mutual support, encouragement and learning

2. Become more sustainable.
- become economically sustainable: generate a financial surplus to help this community and its work to thrive
- support Findhorn Wind Park and other renewable energy sources
- complete the plan for new guest facilities at The Park
- participate in The Park Ecovillage Development planning

3. Strengthen our voice and role in the world.
- continue to develop as a demonstration, resource and education
centre
- attract more people to come here
- continue articulation of our curriculum and purpose
- collaborate with local, national and international partners
- pursue partnership with UN on Education for Sustainable Development and Training Centre
- develop new opportunities for youth
- pursue accreditation