Hi, I'm Andy Goldring. I coordinate the Permaculture Association (Britain), teach permaculture and am active in my own community which is Leeds - a small city in the north of England.

At the moment I'm sitting in a barn in Worcestershire, at Haye Farm, a 'LAND learner project' (see www.permaculture.org/LAND). A group of us have met up to further develop our permaculture teachers network. Its getting colder as autumn draws in, and the apples are ripe. In seven days time I'll be very different climate and culture.

One week to go and I'm getting very excited about arriving in Jordan and taking part in the International Permaculture Convergence.

In preparation I've been asking office colleagues, trustees, teachers, designers, project leaders and our members about their thoughts and questions about the convergence.

Key questions people have asked include:

• Education work - who is doing what, how are we engaging with mainstream education?
• Research - what are people investigating, what trials are in place, how is it being documented?
• Partnerships and alliances. How are we connecting to different networks like Via Campesina?
• Agriculture. How are we working to transform industrial agriculture and preserve seed heritage?

So I'm coming with these and many more questions. I'm eager to listen, curious and interested to learn. I'm also coming with a story of what we are doing here in Britain. I'll be sharing our successes and what is working well, and reflecting on limiting factors and challenges yet to be overcome.

We want to exchange and share, and work with others to further develop this incredible global network. The IPC is a fantastic way to help move that forward.

I'll try to report back each day with a summary of what we've done, or at least some reflections on the things that made me think, smile or sit up and scratch my chin.

Next installment: Arriving!