Sustainable island communities

This morning on the ferry to Waiheke island I was pondering on what brings meaning to one's life. On arrival, I found my good colleague John Stansfield waiting for me ready to start our project on mapping Waiheke island's communicative ecology.

John took me around the island introducing me to lovely island people doing fabulous work in their communities and in the process I heard his own amazing island activism stories, enough to fill a book!

We had lunch at the Kai Conscious Cafe which is part of Waiheke Sustainability Center that is the result of John's 2 decades-long dedicated and passionate work for his island. I sat there eating and sharing stories with local people and others coming from around the world to learn from this island collective how to build sustainable island communities---oh what a joy that was!

On the ferry back to Auckland, I realized that my morning's question had been answered by John and all these fabulous islanders: contributing positively to your community brings meaning to life (whatever that community might be).