Free admission, NO reservations needed.
Refreshments.
Come celebrate the conclusion of this 8 week workshop and the beautiful work of the participating children.
Sunday, April 29, 2018 from 3 to 5 pm at
L.A. Eco-Village
117 Bimini Pl
Courtyard
Los Angeles 90004
Explorations in Natureis a unique 9 week art program for children 3 through 8 and their parents or guardians that use the visual arts to develop deeper connections between children and their experience of the natural world. This program is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs and CRSP in association with the Urban Soil-Tierra Urbana Housing Co-op and the Beverly-Vermont Community Land Trust.
Led by Artist in Residence Sylvette Frazier, creator of Connecting Children to Art in Nature, classes feature emphasis on creating art in an eco-conscious format, culminating with a public exhibition and collaborative nature weave.
Mycelium, mushrooms, mycological remediation, fungi: it comes with many names, but what seems certain is that fungi of various varieties can go a long way toward cleaning up the industrial messes that have been contaminating our places and spaces since the beginnings of the industrial revolution, and even the mess that some of the ancients created, though not nearly as extensively as we have in these more contemporary times.
So, what to do, besides just dig the soil up and cart it away! Here in the Los Angeles Eco-Village, we’ve just said No! to that! Away?? Where’s “Away” anyway? A “hazardous waste facility?” A conventional landfill? Someone else’s backyard?
Some of us here think, no matter who made the mess, it’s our place now, and we should learn to clean it up here where we’re at, because our sense of “away” for bad stuff, is that there is no “away!”
Public agencies have been helping to make that happen in a variety of ways with, for example, the US-Environmental Protection Agency’s Super-Fund sites, and to a lesser extent with a wide variety of Brownfields** throughout the country. Cities, Counties and States, too, have been helping fund many of these clean-ups that dig and haul soil “away.” It’s expensive but it’s quick! And with most developers, time is money, and everyone wants stuff to happen quickly.
Songs, a former auto repair shop
But in the times we are living in, those monies are getting scarce, and we can only see them getting scarcer in the future, as we continue to accelerate our penchant for making our cities and rural lands more and more contaminated, not only with the devastating toxics of hydrocarbon derivatives, and toxic heavy metals in our soils, but with the poisons fostered upon our food supply, even as GMO seeds and toxic pesticides and herbicides drift onto organic farms and sometimes contaminated waters are used to irrigate the land.
We have decided to take matters into our own hands: to learn as much as we can about phyto-technologies or bio-remediation. These are technologies that use plants, trees, micro-organisms, fungi, air, and water to break down or take up both organic and inorganic toxins to render them harmless. Granted the inorganic contaminants’ for example lead, copper, cadmium, etc.; take longer, but we can learn patience and how to respect these biological resources as they make their magic happen.
Our long time friend, Jim Bledsoe–artist, self-taught fungi activist, bicycle activist, inventor, carpenter, fixer–will lead us in a micro demonstration for remediating the oil contaminated concrete floor at Songs*.
We invite you to come learn with us.
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*CRSP will be sponsoring a variety of phyto-technology workshops on the new property in the north corner of the Los Angeles Eco-Village demonstration neighborhood, known as Songs, in the coming years. We will be promoting these workshops to community groups throughout the Los Angeles area that are dealing with contaminated soils in their neighborhoods.
**A Brownfield is any site that is actually contaminated or perceived to be contaminated. The property that CRSP purchased a little over a year ago is a brownfield with a variety of toxins in the soils and inside the buildings
Los Angeles Eco-Village is celebrating our 25th Anniversary all year long: 1993 to 2018. Come hang out with us and share your stories about your experiences here.
Christian Arnsperger returns to LA Eco-Village for the third year. And we welcome Kreigh Hampel , Richard Register, and Gideon Sussman from BuroHappold , and you, our neighbors, friends and colleagues for a special day of interacting with a few of the world’s most creative thinkers for healing and transforming our Cities into resilient eco-systems where health and justice prevail.
EVENT DETAILS:
When:
Saturday, July 14, 2018 from 1pm to midnight or any part of the day as noted on the schedule below
Where:
3554 West First Street – Songs Hall and Yard,
North end of Los Angeles Eco-Village on our new property
Enter on Bimini just south of First St., Los Angeles 90004
Reservations required:
crsp@igc.org or 213/738-1254
Fees (sliding scale): Afternoon sessions, 1 to 5:15pm: $10 – $25 or 4.5 TimeDollars** to CRSP
Catered Dinner, 5:15 to 7pm: $15 to $20 Cash or check to CRSP
Evening sessions,7pm to midnight: $15 to $30 or 5 TimeDollars** to CRSP
All sessions: $30 to $50 with dinner, or 7 TimeDollars for sessions only** plus cash or check made out to CRSP for dinner. Pay at the door.
**Note: TimeDollars to CRSP ok for talks; cash or check to CRSP required for dinner. TimeDollrs are a local currency only available to members of the ArroyoSeco Network of TimeBanks
What the day will look likethough there may still be some changes, so stay tuned:
1 – 2pm:
Veggie potluck lunch and registration – Songs Yard. Please bring your own non-throwaway eating ware to make this a zero waste event.
Lead Engineer for Songs Redevelopment Team; Ian McIlvaine, AIA, CRSP Board President; and Peggy Nguyen, Restoration Ecologist take “A Look Back for a More Resilient Future” – Songs Hall
Ian McIlvaine
3:30 – 3:45pm Break
Kreigh Hampel
3:45 – 5:15pm Kreigh Hampel, Recycling Coordinator, City of Burbank talks on: “How Mulch Good Can We Do? Satellite imaging, microbial intelligence, the historic role of discarded nutrients, and a group exploration into the enormous potential for regenerative urban farming.” – Songs Hall
Anaisabel Mercado
Jimmy Lizama and Yuki Kidokoro
5:15 – 7:00pm Vegan Dinner – catered for $s by L.A. Eco-Villager Anaisabel Mercado or bring our own – Songs Yard: Evening Registration, Announcements, Intros and
Jessica Ruvalcaba
Special GUEST DINNER SPEAKERS who are “Living the Change”, including L.A. Eco-Villagers: Jimmy Lizama, bicycle activist and founder of Relampago Wheelery: Yuki Kidokoro, Climate Justice Alliance National Organizer; and Jessica Ruvalcaba, Waldorf teacher/Mom/artist/award winning Filmmaker
Richard Register
7::00pm – 8:30pm Richard Register, internationally renown urbanist, founder of the world-wide Ecocities conferences, and visionary revolutionary talks on “The LA Soil My Ecocity Ideas Grew Out Of – and Where They’re Headed”
8:30 – 8:45pm Break
8:45 – 10:15pm Christian Arnsperger, Economic Anthropologist, University of Lausanne will talk about the “Permacircularity and Human Permaculture for a New L.A.: The Wisdom of Ecocity Fractals and the Cultivation of Urban Tribes”– Songs Yard
10:15 – 10:30pm Break
10:30 – 11pm Wrap-up panel and dialog with participants – Songs Yard
11pm – midnight: Collaborative reading of “The Spirit of Bimini” by T.H. Culhane – late night snacks or we might save this for another event. Let’s see how we feel. – Songs Yard
Samantha Bode
This event in part or whole will be videotaped led by L.A. Eco-Villager and award winning filmmaker Samantha Bode
Does your organizations or Agency want to be a co-sponsor to help spread the word? Let us know, and we’ll add you to this list: 213/738-1254 or crsp@igc.org
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*Note that this may be the first of a series on “The Soul of Soil”. We have borrowed this theme name from the book of the same title by Joseph Smillie andGrace Gershuny whom we hope to host at LAEV someday.
In Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Eco-Village
In Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Eco-Village
In a lively presentation with hands-on exercises, Diana Leafe Christian will present an overview of Sociocracy, an especially effective governance and decision-making method she now recommends highly instead of consensus for ecovillages and other kinds of intentional communities, because of the wonderful benefits. When used correctly, communities have experienced better meetings, getting more done, being better organized, and a stronger sense of connection between group members. This Sociocracy overview will give you a sense of what Sociocracy is and how it works. However, people learn how to _do_ this method and apply it in their community in a 3-day Sociocracy training, which Diana will do here May 19-21.
EVENT DETAILS
DATE & TIME:
Sunday, March 18, 2018 from 4pm to 6:30pm
LOCATION: Los Angeles Eco-Village
117 Bimini Pl. – Community Room #201
Los Angeles 90004
FEE:
$5 to $15 sliding scale
RESERVATIONS REQUIRED:
crsp@igc.org
or
213-738-1254
*Sociocracy (also called Dynamic Governance) is a system of governance using consent decision making and an organizational structure based on cybernetic principles (a system with closed feedback mechanisms). Sociocracy has been advocated as a management system that distributes leadership and power throughout the organization.
Watch for Diana’s three day Sociocracy workshop at L.A. Eco-Village, Sat-Sun-Mon, May 19, 20, 21, 2018
In Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Los Angeles Eco-Village
Diana Leafe Christian through a lively presentation and slide show, will show how large, well-established communities have established healthy community economies through supporting individual members’ cottage industries — “social enterprises” — and by encouraging their members to earn, spend, invest, and, when possible, even save money onsite, and how smaller and newer communities can do the same. Inspiring success stories as well as cautionary tales from ecovillages worldwide, including Crystal Waters in Australia, the Farm in Tennessee, Dancing Rabbit in Missouri, EcoVillage at Ithaca in New York, Findhorn in Scotland, Earthaven in North Carolina, and of course our own Los Angeles Eco-Village.
EVENT DETAILS:
DATE & TIME:
Saturday, March 17, 2018
Veggie Potluck at 6:30pm*
Talk begins at 7:30pm * please bring your own non throw-away eating ware to make this a zero waste event
LOCATION Los Angeles Eco-Village
117 Bimini Place – Lobby or Community Room
Los Angeles 90004
Author, former editor of Communities magazine, and nationwide speaker and workshop presenter on starting new ecovillages, on building communities, and on sustainability, Diana lives in an off-grid homestead at Earthaven Ecovillage in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, She has said that living in an intentional community “is the longest, most expensive, personal growth workshop you will ever have.
She’s authored two books designed to help people who want to join or start their own ecovillages or other intentional communities,
In her book Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools for Growing Ecovillages and Intentional Communities, she uses success stories, cautionary tales, and step-by-step advice to cover typical time-frames and costs; the role of founders; getting started as a group; vision documents; power, governance, and decision-making; legal structures; finding and financing land; zoning issues; sustainable site plans; selecting new members; and good process and communication skills for dealing well with conflict.
In Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community, she covers researching, visiting, evaluating, and joining communities.
More about Diana and her wide reaching influence on the intentional communities movement here
The conference will be held at theMarina Village Conference Center, 1936 Quivira Way, San Diego, which offers a beautiful view of the bay, and the convenience of a location near San Diego airport.
Conference workshops reveal how cooperatives revitalize and fortify local economies by creating jobs, housing, and locally owned businesses!
Pre-Conference: Saturday, April 28th: A full day intensive training on Sociocracy.
Keynote, Monday, 4/30: Building a Better World: The Case for a Cooperative Economy, Vernon Oakes
Conference sponsor: California Center for Cooperative Development: www.cccd.coop
in association with co-sponsors:
U.S. Dept of Agriculture Rural Development
Cooperative Center Federal Credit Union
Pachamama Coffee Cooperative
North Island Credit Union
Tuttle Law Group
Alvarado St. Bakery
North Coast Co-op
Briar Patch Food Co-op
Shared Capital Cooperative
Food Co-op Initiative
Davis Food Co-op
Sun Anza
National Cooperative Bank
Capital Impact Partners
Sacramento Natural Food Co-op
University Cooperative Housing Association
Sustainable Economies Law Center
If you would like to become a conference sponsor please follow this link for more information.
California Center for Cooperative Development (CCCD) is a non-profit and depends on people like you for support. CCCD members receive a discount on conference fees. CCCD is an equal opportunity provider and employer. Please click here to become a member of CCCD. Your membership contribution is considered a tax deductible donation.
Angeles Eco-Village.
