Sunday, August 14, 1-4PM
Calling all Social Change Agents
Join us for networking activities and breakout sessions that encourage maximum collaboration and learning
• Revitalize your passion for creating a better world
• Share your knowledge and gifts
• Find folks who have common values and with whom you can collaborate
• Nourish established connections
Breakout Sessions: Everyone Can Host One
We want everyone to have an opportunity to:
- Share their knowledge
- Get feedback for a project
- Have a conversation about something you long to talk about
- Find others who have similar goals and interests
Come for the entire event (highly recommended), or just drop in any time.
Snack Potluck: Bring healthy, preferably vegan finger food (please keep in mind our vegan, gluten-free, allergic, and diabetic friends, and clearly label the ingredients.)
Bring: (all are optional, but preparing beforehand will maximize your experience!)
- Flyers/brochures/business cards to put out on the networking table
- Want/have notices for the bulletin board: Housing, jobs, collaborations events
- Books for the Book Swap
- Used clothing for the Clothing Swap
- Produce to share at the Crop Swap
- Your ideas for a break out session: skill sharing, workshop, facilitated conversation, brainstorming session
Schedule:
1:00 Doors open
1-1:30
- Registration
- Set out networking material,
- post notices (including needs and offerings
- make a creative name tag.
- Put your food on the table.
- Write your “essence blurb”
- Registration
- Tours of the Place: Actually see for yourself things like: tiny homes, container home, maker space, co-working space, hugelkulter gardening, biochar, and much more!
- Visit ongoing activities: book swap, displays for sponsors, fruit give-away, clothing give-away,
1:30-2pm Opening circle: share “essence blurbs” and create the workshop/conversation schedule
1:40-2 First session-10 minutes
2:10-2:20 second session (10 mins)
2:30--2:45 third session (15 mins)
2:55-3:25 4th session (30 mins)
3:30-4:00 closing circle: reflections, song, celebration
Want to help? Working together is a bonding experience!
4:00-5 Clean up and basking in the afterglow!
Stay around for the monthly free potluck and music event starting at 6:00
Cost: $10 No one turned away for lack of funds.
Scent-Free
In order to make our workshop as accessible as possible and to be inclusive to those with chemical sensitivities, we encourage all participants to try to reframe from wearing scented products, such as scented deodorant, perfume, cologne, scented soaps, etc. For more information about chemical sensitivities and for a listed of scented products, please East Bay Meditation Center.
Co-sponsored by:
A PLACE For Sustainable Living
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Confirmed Breakout Sessions
Remember: Anyone can host a breakout session. But if you want us to list your breakout session, fill out this form.
Tour of a Place for Sustainable Living: If you missed the tour that was done during the arrival time, you can still have the opportunity to see all the amazingly creative and sustainable things that are happening at the site.
Legalizing Tiny Home Villages: Betsy Morris is a Cohousing Coach and community organizer who is passionate about solving housing problems by building tiny home ecovillages
How to Become a "Steward" at a PLACE for sustainable living: Learn about opportunities to live/and or be a steward at a PLACE which is a public-serving, experiential learning center to showcase and foster sustainable living practices, urban homesteading, community resiliency & preparedness, social justice and artistic expression.
Molly Hoffman, events coordinator will share what it is like to be a steward, and the opportunities available. Positions now open include: Facilities Steward, Garden Steward,Administration Steward, and Education Steward.
Something Relevant About Community: If you know anything about Raines Cohen, you know that he loves to live in the present moment, and whoever shows up at his breakout session can ask any question they like about intentional community with the likelihood that he either knows the answer or can point you to someone who does.
Raines is the co-founder, along with his wife, Betsy Morris, of Eastbay Cohousing and California Cohousing.
People-Powered Community: Tim Ng of Community Democracy Project. How can we create sustained structures for intentional cooperation and person to person dialogue? How do we create vibrant and engaged communities? In this workshop, we'll explore what inspires each of us to push forward and how CDP is working to bring people power to Oakland.
Tim believes in the power of mediation, dialogue, and honesty as the path to liberation. He is a co-director with the Community Democracy Project because he believes that systemic change is possible if we embrace the potential of collective unity.
Building a Bridge of Cooperation to the Ozark Bioregion: Patricia Mikkelson, founder of Community: Connect! Project, wants to inspire Bay Area folks to get involved in a bi-regional Timebank that is being created, and consider being part of the building a model tiny home village on land designated for the Wellspring Ecovillage on 9 acres in the hills of Northwest Arkansas Ozarks.
Patricia has spent the past 4 months immersing herself in the culture of the Bay Area, and is convinced that if the social change agents in the Bay Areafolk s and the Ozarks combined their strengths, amazing synergy can happen.
Inclusive Solutions to Homelessness: It is possible to enable homeless people to take more control of their lives, have a greater influence on services, and play a full role in our community.
Athol Halle is Executive Director of Groundswell in the UK. His previous employers include Cardboard Citizens, Amnesty International UK and National Homeless Alliance – the organisation from which Groundswell originated. Athol is a fellow of the School for Social Entrepreneurs and of the Ariane de Rothschild Fellowship in Social Enterprise and Cross-Cultural Dialogue.
Learning from Social Justice Movements in SF: David is a veteran school teacher who is passionate about sharing the history of San Francisco by leading a walking tour that helps people learn about how effective social change has taken place so that they can apply this to their present day efforts.
David Giesen leads a free Sunday morning tour in San Francisco at http://www.thecommonssf.org/walking_tour
Ordinary Action for Social Transformation: Appreciative Inquiry to discover our natural possibilities to be the change we wish to see in the world.
Facilitated by Carolina Cárdenas: Lover of life. Teacher. Ontological Coach. Social Communitarian and Positive Psychologist visiting from Chile
Project Berkeley: Planting a Flag for Animal Liberation An introduction to the initiative aimed at helping Berkeley become the first pro-animal city in the US.
Direct Action Everywhere's Paul Darwin Picklesimer was born and raised in West Virginia before spending the last few years in Chicago and recently moving to Berkeley to volunteer in the growing Animal Liberation movement. He uses his education in marketing and passion for helping others to contribute whatever, wherever and whenever possible.
Feedback for Ecofaction Website: Barbara Hulley, founder of Ecofaction wants the calendar and directory on her website to be as comprehensive and useful as it possibly can. Join her to give your suggestions and encouragement. Check out her website ahead of time so you will know even better how to help.
How do we who are social change agents keep our hope alive? Lloyd Ferris, who will be sharing music during the event, wants to have a conversation with folks who struggle with hopelessness at times, and/or who have found ways to keep their spirits up during these difficult times.
Lloyd is a musician who writes songs with messages that resonate with social change agents and which spark inspiration, insight, and hope.
Learn about IT & how you can help. After years of planning & design, we are ready to start building IT. We are looking for people who are interested in hearing about IT and helping us to make IT happen. What is IT? HWNit (or IT) is a community tool for the people to exchange goods and services using both traditional & non-traditional currency. IT connects people to their community in a profound way.
This will be a presentation and Q&A by Misty Mulhall, Lead Design of HWNit.org.
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Remember..you, too, can facilitate a breakout session. We look forward to what you have to share. Contact us ahead of time and we will do our best to list your topic on our calendar page.
Co-sponsored by:
Wellspring Ecovillage Project
a Place for sustainable living is looking for people who
want to collaborate in hosting events as well as people to serve
as stewards for this urban learning center.
What people are saying about their experience of Community: Connect!
"Community Connect is for agents of change to harness the power of dialogue and commit each other to sustained action for equity and justice in our communities. Talk to one another about our collective visions for how to bring our networks from where we are today towards what is truly possible through people-powered projects. C:C! is driven by compassion, dedication, and conversation. Face-to-face and heart-to-heart, we call forth the power of hope in order to turn our ideas into practical steps."
Tim Ng of Community Democracy Project.
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"Imagine you lived in a small town where you knew your neighbors and you all got together to see how you could best help each other. That's the feeling we bring together at a C:C! event, a place to be held and to offer your support and connection. To learn from and about each other. To share sustenance. To come to a place of deeper appreciation of our selves, our unique talents, skills and connections, our extended community, and the power of asking -- and giving.
As we plan a C:C! gathering, we invite everyone to think about what they need and what they can teach. How they're stuck and where to break out of the box. We look for people with something to share and start a schedule, but there's always lots of room to add more at the door and afterwards.
So come, share, enjoy -- and prepare to be surprised. Be ready to listen and build awareness of one another. And find your way to ask for what you need -- together, we can find creative ways to get those needs met."
Raines Cohen:Cohousing California
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