Author: Lois

WestCo | April 24-26, 2015 | Berkeley, CA

WestCo, an annual conference for members of cooperatives in the Western United States and Canada, will be held this year in Berkeley, CA from April 24th through 26th.

WestCo is a space for local cooperators to build community, attend educational workshops and social events, and celebrate their common interests and experiences. This year’s conference is organized by members of the Berkeley Student Cooperative.

More programming details will be released later in March. If you have any questions, please visit NASCO’s WestCo page or contact Zury Cendejas, Berkeley Student Cooperative VP of External Affairs, at vpea@bsc.coop.

More info:
Westco@nasco.coop
http://mail.nasco.coop/mailman/listinfo/westco_nasco.coop

Communify Un-Conference in San Diego, Saturday, March 7, 2015 from 9am to 6pm

Join us at COMMUNIFY San Diego:     Communify un-conference

A gathering of pioneers, seekers, neighbors, organizers, dreamers, trainers, leaders, and activists reclaiming a more sustainable world through intentional communities, cooperative culture, deep democracy, and participatory economics.  

Saturday, March 7, 2015 9am-6pm at San Diego Friends Center  

People in intentional and traditional communities around the world are already living more green, peaceful, and abundant ways of life.

Reclaiming the power of cooperative human connections, people everywhere have been asking questions that lead back to more satisfying lives. We’re busy reinventing what we own, how we spend time, grow food, earn a living, do business, invest money, and participate in our neighborhoods and governments.

Get the jump on Earth Day. Meet, learn, share, and break bread with old and new friends across community movements here in southern California. There’s plenty of time to network and strategize next steps forward.

Sustainable Community is Within Reach!  

Communify San Diego is an unconference.  Using “open space technology” we will convene a marketplace of ideas when everyone can propose sessions on the topics they are most interested in. Sessions can be skills-sharing, discussions, interviews, games, or presentations.  Opportunities to get to know each other will include “Speed Dating” and “Deepening Connection” sessions. Other sessions have been proposed and are invited include:

  • Dealing with Difference – Communication Games and Technologies of Participation
  • Conscious Elders & Aging in Community
  • Wisdom Circles and Restorative Justice
  • Post-Occupy Organizing of the Commons
  • Sacred Economics
  • Slow Money, Crowdfunding, & Participatory Budgeting

We’ll also share opening and closing circles, a panel of special speakers, info tables for partner groups, raffle prizes to benefit Fellowship for Intentional Community and our local host.  Morning coffee, healthy snacks and lunch are provided.

Special Guests & Presenters  

Lois Arkin, Founder of Los Angeles Eco-Village
CASA: Consejo de Asentamientos Sustentables de las Américas
Diana Leafe Christian, author of Creating a Life Together, and Finding Community
 Raines Cohen certified Senior Advisor / Cohousing Coach
Betsy Morris, PhD, Cohousing Researchers Network, and author of “Making Cohousing Affordable,” and “Urban Redevelopment and the Emerging Community Sector.”
Plus YOU, bringing the topics you want to learn about or share.

EVENT DETAILS:
Time:
Saturday, March 7, 2015 from 9am to 6pm

Location:
San Diego Friends Center:
San Diego Friends Center
3850 Westgate Pl
San Diego, CA 92105
Google map and directions

Cost:
$65 in advance;  $75 at the door.
Partner discounts, work-trade/volunteer rebates are still available or call 619-457-6198 (voice/SMS) for more information.

Contact:
Betsy and Raines · info@communify.in · 619-457-6198

Will you come?
RSVP on Facebook
AND purchase a ticket here

More info here:
Communify unconference About San Diego

Add-on Events 

Weeknight showing of Within Reach, Friday evening at colab.

Sunday 1:30-6:30pm –  Tour and Half Day Intensive at Emerald Village in Rio Vista,  specifically on the nuts and bolts of developing cohousing and ecovillages — people, place, and process.

Communify San Diego is produced by Cohousing California partners, Cohousing Coaches Betsy Morris & Raines Cohen, of Planning for Sustainable Communities, in Berkeley, CA and the San Diego Local Hosts, Patti Shields, Jonah, Mesritz, Andrea Carter, and Mariah Gayler.

Cohousing California is pleased to promote the work of our organizational partners including the Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC), Cohousing Association of the US, and CASA, the South American regional association of the Global Ecovillages Network, and CRSP Institute for Urban Ecovillages.

Tax-exempt donations are welcome through our nonprofit sponsor, the Fellowship for Intentional Community (www.ic.org).

 

 

 

Open post

Create Your Own Water-Wise Home & Landscape, Book talk, Friday, April 3, 2015 at 7:30pm at L.A. Eco-Village

With simple plumbing alterations and smart landscape changes, every home has the potential to create a sustainable water supply with an ecologically productive landscape. From reusing greywater, to collecting rainwater, to installing waterless composting toilets, our collective efforts can transform our home water systems.

 

This accessible guide–The Water-Wise Home: How to Conserve, Capture, and Reuse Water in Your Home and Landscape–by Laura Allen, founder of Greywater Action, explains how to use water smartly and efficiently, increasing supply, saving money, reducing wear on your septic system, and fulfilling your home and garden needs. She describes proven conservation techniques, explains how to create a water-wise landscape, and provides illustrated, step-by-step instructions for setting up a waterless composting toilet as well as systems to reuse greywater, harvest rainwater, and more.  The book also includes national trends, codes and regulations, costs, health and safety considerations, and system examples

 

From the Back Cover

Even as severe droughts become more common and the water crisis heats up worldwide, you can radically reduce water use in your own home. Laura Allen is your expert guide to building systems that conserve and reuse water while saving money and meeting the needs of your home and garden. These practical, low-tech solutions are an essential part of our new water future.

About L.A. Eco-Villager Laura Allen

Laura Allen 2015 for book promotionLaura Allen is cofounder of Greywater Action (http://greywateraction.org/) and has spent many years exploring low-tech, sustainable water solutions. She leads classes and workshops, including the first training program for professional greywater installers, and participates in writing state-level greywater and composting toilet codes. She lives in the Los Angeles Eco-Village and has facilitated the installation of many greywater systems in LAEV.

 

EVENT DETAILS

Date and Time:      
Friday, April 3, 2015 at 7:30pm

Location:
Los Angeles Eco-Village
117 Bimini Pl – Lobby
Los Angeles  90004
Directions

FREE EVENT

Book will be available for sale:  Story Press, 2015, $25

 

 

Open post

Hike into History: Sturdevant Camp in the San Gabriels, Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 7:30AM

Just as they did a century ago, we will travel along a well-marked trail into the Camp where we will be able to peek into all of the buildings on site, including the oldest existing U.S. Forest Service structure still in its original location, a beautiful hand bult cabin (circa 1903) that served as the first ranger station, and the original 1897 Swiss Dining Pavilion, this currently serves as Sturtevant Lodge.  Just as they did in 1936, Adams’ Pack Station will bring along the 12 donkey pack train with lunch and water to the Camp.

EVENT DETAILS:
When:         Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 7:30am
What:          Moderate hike–approximately 8 miles round trip (hike at your
own risk).
Where:        Adams’ Pack Station at Chantry Flat in the Angeles National Forest
Map

Parking:   In the parking lots at Chantry Flat and along the road with an
Adventure Pass, or in the private parking lot at Adams’ Pack Station
for $10.

Sturtevant-Camp-Approach-300x200 cabinWhy:          Fund Raiser to Save Sturtevant Camp.

How:          Help the Friends of the San Gabriels raise money to save Sturdevant
Camp.  There will be T-shirts for sale and, of course, donations of any amount are welcome.

More Info:  www.friendsofsangabriels.org
See a list of donor incentives such as adopt a cabin, win a stay at Camp Sturdevant and more.  Also you can download the fundraiser prospectus from the site.  Contact Deb Burgess for more info:  626-447-7356 or dburgess@burcon-group.com

Open post

Antena Los Angeles Launch Event Friday, January 23, 2015 from 6:30pm to 9pm at L.A. Eco-Village

Antena Los Ángeles is dedicated to language justice advocacy and organizing locally in Los Angeles. We work with individuals and organizations doing interpretation, translation, and workshops on language justice and interpreting for the social justice context. We believe that language justice is part of social justice.

Join us for the Los Angeles launch of this new collective:

EVENT DETAILS:

Time:         Friday, January 23, 2015 from 6:30pm to 9pm
Location:  Los Angeles Eco-Village, 117 Bimini Place, Los Angeles 90004
Directions:  http://laecovillage.org/home/directions/
Refreshments and childcare provided.

Contacts:
antenalosangeles@gmail.com
antena@antenaantena.org

More info about Antena Los Angeles

In 2014, Antena Los Ángeles was founded as the first local branch of Antena, with the participation of Miguel Morales Cruz and Los Angeles Eco-Village member Ana Paula Noguez Mercado. Antena Los Ángeles  is specifically focused on building multilingual spaces locally in Southern California.

Antena views our aesthetic practice as part and parcel of our language justice work. Antena activates links between social justice work and artistic practice by exploring how critical views on language can help us to reimagine and rearticulate the worlds we inhabit. Antena works with organizations, communities and individuals to create dynamic, well-functioning multilingual spaces for small and large groups of people to foster open communication and attentive listening across languages and cultures.  We primarily work with Spanish and English but have experience coordinating more diverse language combinations.

antena_logo

 

Open post

Urban Soil Carbon Water Summit, February 24-25, 2015 at the Natural History Museum, Los Angeles

Conference website:  http://urbansoil.org/  *

Living Soil +Carbon Sequestration + Native Plants = soil security = water security.

Twenty prominent presenters over two days in dialogue with Summit attendees will share strategies for:

• Restoring urban soils

• Reducing drought

• Creating a more verdant and economically viable city, and

• Sequestering carbon in the soil biome to reverse climate change.

Here in the City of Angels is the beginning of the collaboration with the billions of angels in the soil biome beneath our feet  to restore the soils of America’s urban environments.

The Summit host, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, located in Exposition Park, near downtown Los Angeles, seeks to inspire wonder, discovery and responsibility for our natural and cultural worlds and empower the widest possible audience to enjoy, value and become stewards of the living Earth. The Museum believes that human beings are connected — to each other, to communities, to other species, and to the Earth.

As humans increasingly influence natural systems, it is critical that we understand these relationships. Therefore, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County has donated all facilities and resources  during this Summit in order to spark the necessary dialogue around urban soil and water security.

Spend some time wandering in the beautiful gardens.    Learn more about the Museum at:  http://www.nhm.org/site/

See conference website for sponsors and registration:  http://urbansoil.org/

* not to be confused with the Urban Soil-Tierra Urbana Limited Equity Housing Cooperative in Los Angeles Eco-Village

Open post

Profitable Urban Farming Workshop, February 7 – 8, 2015 in Long Beach CA

Is it possible to make a good living on less than an acre of land?

Learn how you can farm on just a quarter acre of land and make $50,000, or even $100,000 on half an acre.

Curtis Stone is the owner/operator of Green City Acres, a commercial urban farm in Kelowna, BC. Since 2010, he has been successfully farming on multiple urban lots in the cities downtown, and will demonstrate to you, that you can farm on very small plots of land without the debt burden of a mortgage or the high capital expenses of the usual infrastructure that most farms need.

Curtis wants to show you how you can shave off two to three years of the mistakes he made, and get you off to a strong start now, making a great living doing something you love!

In this two day workshop, you will learn about strategic production techniques that focus on high value crops with short growth cycles as well as specialized and niche market streams such as restaurants, and cooperative CSA’s. You will also learn how to use modern technology to better manage your business that will save you time and money!

Topics Covered: Market research, site selection, site negotiation, crop selection, bed layout, tools, planting, weeding, watering timers, harvesting, market prep & storage, restaurant, CSA, and much more!

The workshop will take place in Long Beach on February 7 and 8.

Details here, including registration and detailed workshop schedule:
http://www.permaculturevoices.com/profitable-urban-farming-workshop-long-beach-february-7-and-8/

Event sponsored by Permaculture Voices

Open post

Permaculture Voices 2015, March 4-8, 2015 Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina: San Diego, CA

PV2 features speakers such as Diana Leafe Christian, Paul Stamets, Gunter Pauli, Maddy Harland, Dr. Elaine Ingham, Starhawk, Mark Shepard, Larry Santoyo, Toby Hemenway, Pandora Thomas and more
Overall there will be over 60 presenters and 100 hours of content talking about everything from broadacre permaculture to social permaculture to green business.
There will be extensive networking opportunities throughout the event including two parties.
 
Event Logistics:
March 4-8, 2015
San Diego, CA – Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina
More Information: permaculturevoices.com/pv2
 
Want to be a part of the change, either on a personal or business level?
PV2 isn’t just another permaculture convergence that focuses on hyper-local DIY skill building and resiliency; we instead decided to look bigger.
We are blending the practical techniques and tactics found in workshops with the entrepreneurial spirit and opportunity of a business conference.
We have brought together a diverse group of creative and innovative doers in a variety of fields looking to share experiences, knowledge, connect, and create in ways that increase passion, purpose and profit.
These doers come from a variety of fields both within and outside of permaculture. Each field has its own needs and yields. It is this edge that creates the opportunity for things to happen, and it is this opportunity that offers value to the attendees – how can you fill needs and utilize yields to create more value.
 
Why we organized PV2 the way that we did.
At PV1 we realized that the attendees themselves were a wealth of knowledge and a diverse collection of needs and yields. Given that, we have focused on turning some of the conversation away from the stage and into the audience to create an experience for diverse participants to share ideas, discover opportunities, and create strategies and connections that enable meaningful and financially viable creations.
We want to see a massive impact on an environmental, social, and financial level, so PV2 will be heavily focused on right livelihood – making a living within the permaculture space.
Business fuels change and we believe in the power of utilizing business for positive change.  You may be involved in a business in some way as an employee or an owner, and given the time spent on(in) that business, it has a huge effect on your life, both financially and emotionally. If your values aren’t aligned with what you do, then it isn’t sustainable.
Therefore PV2 is planned to help inspire change on a personal level and an organizational level in a way that maximizes the triple bottom line.
We want to help people make business more sustainable and we want to help promote and grow the next generation of regenerative businesses.
If you aren’t a business owner or an employee you can still benefit by participating in this discussion because there is a lot of opportunity and needs out there. And there will be a lot of change makers at PV2 looking for help. If you want to help, then you’ll be in the right place.
NOTE:
Los Angeles Eco-Villagers Laura Allen and Lois Arkin will also be at this conference.  Come hang out with Laura at the Greywater Action table on Thursday and Friday. 3/5 & 6.  And with Lois at Diane Leafe Christians workshop Friday  3/6 from 1:30 to 2:30pm.
Open post

National Cohousing Conference – May 29-31, 2015 in Durham NC

The conference promises amazing offerings:
from innovative approaches to developing new and affordable communities, to potent ways to enhance our vibrant communities.We’ll cover cohousing basics as well as hot topics in sustainability, community building, and the evolving definition of cohousing. Our “next generation theme,” will explore the new wave of urban, senior and agricultural communities, check in with our now-adult children of cohousing, and celebrate communities that have thrived for over 20 years.A packed agenda yes, but plenty of time for networking, special gatherings, and fun!
Read more for details, and sneak preview of offerings, and visit our
Learn more about cohousing here:  www.cohousing.org
Open post

Call for Papers by May 15, 2015 for Communal Studies Association Conference October 1-3, 2015 in Pleasant Hill Kentucky

Call for Papers

Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill Conference
Marking the Land:  How Intentional Communities Shape
Their Surrounding Physical & Social Landscapes

The 2015 Conference of the Communal Studies Association will be held at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. In 1806, Shaker missionary visits to this area stimulated religious revivals and Shaker conversions which led to the establishment of the Pleasant Hill community. By the 1820s, Pleasant Hill was one of the largest Shaker communities in America. The Shakers at Pleasant Hill actively shaped a landscape that was entirely distinct from the physical and social landscapes of the surrounding region, making Pleasant Hill a Kentucky showpiece.

Intentional communities make their mark on the places they inhabit. That mark might be in the physical transformation of the landscape that sustains the community. It might be the design or transformation of the structures that shelter the community. Or it might be the creation or reorganization of a distinct social landscape. Landscape transformation lies close to the heart of the communal impulse.

We seek the widest range of participation at CSA’s 2015. Paper proposals may address any aspect of communal and intentional group studies, historical and contemporary, alike. We especially encourage paper proposals addressing the theme of landscape transformation, broadly constructed. CSA welcomes proposals from graduate and undergraduate students, first-time presenters, and professional and amateur scholars alike.

Deadline for Submission of Paper and Session Proposals:
May 15, 2015

Use our website form to send your presentation title, a 150-word maximum abstract, and a brief (100 word) biographical statement and contact information. Only on-line proposals will be accepted.

For information contact Program Chair, Carol Medlicott, at medlicottc1@nku.edu. All presenters will be notified by email in August 2015.  A limited amount of financial support is available for graduate student assistance. If applicable, please indicate your interest with your on-line proposal submission. Successful applicants will be notified of financial support by email in August 2015.

The Communal Studies Association is an interdisciplinary organization for people living in intentional communities, historic site personnel and academics representing topics including history, anthropology, religious studies, sociology, political science, and others. Each year, the CSA’s annual conference is held at the site of an historic intentional community. For more information about the organization, see our website.

Torang Asadi
Communal Studies Association
Communal Studies Association | P.O. Box 122 | Amana | IA | 52203

Home

Posts navigation

1 2 3 … 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 … 28 29 30
Scroll to top