The Touchwood Project

Hello there, I’m Rachel DuBois. My husband Malcolm Handoll and I started the Touchwood Project here on Orkney, a cluster of surprisingly happening islands off the northern coast of Scotland that’s known for its Stone Age and Viking archaeological sites (think standing stones and ancient burial chambers).

Standing stones at 3am in summer

We make up the core of the Touchwood Project, a social enterprise that’s about having fun and enjoying saving the planet.

Touchwood keeps growing and changing, so I’ve rewritten this little “About us” section 6 times already in the 18 months we’ve been going, but I’d say we’re looking for ways to lead our tribe (a nod here to Seth Godin’s Tribes).

We want to help people like us who want to make the world a better place and are ready to do more to make that happen, who are interested in things like making your own clothes, leaving your crappy job for work you love, coming up with cheap, practical ways to be green, playing board games, reducing the amount of stuff you own, getting completely free of debt — that kind of thing. Who saw movies like An Inconvenient Truth, Age of Stupid or Food Inc and thought “Things have got to change, and that starts with me.”

We want to provide encouragement and gosh, even inspiration — or at least amusing examples of noble failures, such as my sad attempts at making shampoo or learning how to cook.

Who are we, anyway?

In my case, I’m an American who came to Scotland on a holiday and met Malcolm, got engaged in two weeks, and chucked in my corporate job as a web producer in Washington DC.

I empathize with all those out there who haven’t the first clue how to cook a proper meal much less grow their own food, who never learned practical skills like how to mend a hole in your shirt or raise a plant without killing it, because that’s where I was when I first arrived in my new homeland. Happily, I’ve had a few years to figure some of that stuff out, and I’d like to share the resources I’ve found with others on a similar quest.

As for Malcolm, he teaches survival and outdoor skills, so UK folks can think of Ray Mears and not be far off, while US folks can think…Davey Crockett. Or maybe Daniel Boone. Malcolm grew up spending his summers in Wales and England in a house with no electricity or heating, so is perfectly at home — prefers it, in fact — with a few candles and a fire.

Yep, that's us

Malcolm’s the one who loves to tinker and be frugal, so comes up with ideas like putting cardboard on our windows at night to warm the house (works wonders) while I love good design and crafty creativity, and think to replace the cardboard with handmade felt so it looks pretty.

What are we actually doing?

For now, we’re still brewing ideas, working with groups like 10:10 and Transition Towns while making a lot of personal changes in our own lives that we’re finding astonishingly rewarding, rather than big and scary like we thought they’d be.

We also spend a lot of time looking out the window at the view you can see below and taking our cats for runs on the beach.

The view from our window.

Our original plan was to build an eco-centre based on Skara Brae, Orkney’s Stone Age village and World Heritage site — a Scottish version of the Ice Hotel.  We hope to still do something like that, creating a place where fellow tribespeople can gather to relax and stock up on energy and optimism that you need to keep forging your own path.

We’re also interested in creating a social website for the tribe to collaborate and share not just their ideas and questions, but also their projects. There are so many of these sites out there, but we haven’t found what we’re looking for so we might just end up creating it.

If you’re one of the tribe, I hope you’ll get in touch. Soon we’ll be asking for your input and to join us.

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