4/28/06 Lane County Relocalization event planning

Submitted Wed, 2006-12-27 14:32 — Sundog

For [part of] our next meeting @ 454 Willamette St, 11AM, Jan. 2nd, Will and Krishna will each write a brief initiative in their areas of expertise and present them in 5-10 minutes to the group. The initiatives will list the 3-6 things they would do. Will's presentation will be on how a farm can create alternative fuels for its own use...

From: Margaret Springer
Date: Dec 27, 2006 11:43 AM
Subject: Notes on the 12-26 meeting
To: deeblack@gmail.com, LINDA WILL KLAUSMEIER POWELL , jim.maloney@eweb.eugene.or.us, Kathy Ging , rlogan@igc.org, jan spencer , KRISHNA@cdeva.info, vayamaji@att.net, marcos5@comcast.net, GuyProuty@msn.com, Majeska Seese-Green [<<<


Relocalization Event Planning Meeting, 12-26-06
Present: Ravi Logan, Guy Prouty, Joshua Smith, Will Klausmeier, Jan Spencer, Maggie Springer, Doug Black, Krishna Khalsa, and Mark Hurwit.


Announcements
Doug: the Portland Peak Oil Task Force report will be coming out in January or February (San Francisco has a similar group). Is anyone is interested in working on interfacing with city government on the issue with him? Doug also mentioned that Alan Lowe, at city planning, is concerned about peak oil and wants to talk about it.

The Event Itself

* Krishna: On Friday night, in addition to the keynoters, workshop presenters could present "thumbnails" (Will called them "previews").
* Will emphasized the importance of a good moderator both days to keep on message, provide structure, and preview what will happen and review what has happened.
* Jan suggested that we do what is done at permaculture gatherings: circle up at break times and have workshop presenters for the next session give an idea of what their workshop covers and where in the meeting setting it will be.

Objectives/Homework for Ourselves
Ravi reminded us that we need to work on identifying and being clear on our objectives. Do we have a clear direction we want to take people? This needs to address needed changes in physical infrastructure and social and political organization, including practical ideas on getting from here to there. Psychological and spiritual aspects are also important. A lot of good things are happening in the community, Ravi said, but we need a coherent vision of how a local economy would work, using alternative energy, protecting our waters, etc.
Jan said members of our group "should know about what's being done, prototypes, as shown in 'Peak Moment' interviews with Tree Bressen, Melanie Rios, and Jan himself. Ravi agreed that we need to familiarize ourselves with work already done and being done locally on food, energy, forestry, and urban redesign to reduce energy and material needs.

Definition of Relocalization
Will has asked at previous meetings for a definition of relocalization, and asked again at this one, "Is there a relocalization 'manifesto'? He thinks we should define the term and create a manifesto before getting into our event agenda.
Ravi said relocalization's a contemporary term for economic decentralization, and added that it implies culture change. Ravi believes that one of our most important objectives should be to make this event more than just a one-time occasion for dissemination of information (Eugene has had and continues to have plenty of these) – it needs to go beyond that in inspiring and providing steps toward an ongoing process of preparing our area/community for coming changes. "We have to have substance for our buzzwords," Ravi said – more and more evolved models in the areas of food, energy sources, forestry, and urban redesign that can give opportunities for employment.
Reviewing some of the work already done in this area, Ravi mentioned Ivan Illich, who he said focused on the "human aspects;" Schumaker, also humanistic and concerned with issues of scale; Wendell Berry ("descent markets"); Kirkpatrick Sales ("descent cultures and relationship to place"); and the Postcarbon Institute based in Vancouver. Our immediate focus, Ravi said, is a "practical orientation around food systems and security." Mentioning Joshua's work, he noted that ecoforestry is an important aspect of relocation, since forests are sources of building materials, fuel, and many other needed items.
Ravi concluded by saying that we need to be familiar with the issues of relocalization – practical concerns that will come up and that people will ask about.
Krishna agreed that we need to "flesh it out." He said he likes to use body as a model, with "the head rules" representing our current system and cooperative multicenters what we're working toward. On a psychological level, consensus decision-making is part of this.
Ravi agreed with Jan that a lot of movement toward relocalization will occur organically as a result of necessity. The idea for our event and what we hope will follow it to is have at least some projects and structures in place before too many changes occur, and to give people "a sense of a vision, a [positive] sense of possibility."

Outreach
Guy asked if we were trying to attract more than just "the normal choir," noting that most people don't know anything about any of this. Doug responded by saying that we hoped to pull in a "broad constituency" by building bridges with local churches, educational institutions (LCC and the U of O), and neighborhood associations. Krishna added Food for Lane County volunteers to this list.
Joshua said we could approach groups that are starting to "turn this way," and offer speakers. In this connection Jan mentioned communities of faith organized by TRIM (Two Rivers Interfaith Ministry). Krishna suggested getting communities of faith interested in issues like food security. He said many church attendees are female, over 55, have disposable income, and might like to get involved in something meaningful to them. Ravi agreed that we need to present "a coherent vision of relocalization" to different constituencies developing awarenesses and shift them toward sustainability.
Mark said we could do interviews with local broadcast and print media, like KLCC and the Eugene Weekly. Guy envisioned a speaker from our group on community cable TV, noting that there's a regular program on community issues. Joshua said we could have a regular show. Krishna pointed out that nobody watches CTV, so we have to bring our audience to it by e-mailing or otherwise contacting people to notify them of interesting shows. Ideally, he said, we would have "our own portal into available media." This could be the website that was also mentioned.
We also talked about making a short DVD with people talking about these issues (maybe edited from others) that could be handed out at the end of our or other events. Will agreed, saying that a 20-minute video could be our 'manifesto.' Mark mentioned that Bioneers has CDs with 4-5 minute clips of 12-15 "hopeful" speakers. He added that unless a speaker is using a Powerpoint presentation audio is as good as video. Mark believes that getting people together to watch videos or listen to tapes is more effective than expecting individuals to watch/listen to them on their own. Jan suggested an "inventory of outreach assets we have," including U-Tube. He also said our outreach message should include example of good things already going on, as in "Peak Moments." Krishna is working on getting "Peak Moments" videos available for our use and for CTV.
Krishna asked if we were addressing everyone – ones, twos, threes, etc. Mark responded by saying he doesn't think we need to create different messages for different awareness levels – "people get it as best they can."
Joshua noted that some of what we were talking about was really marketing rather than organizing/outreach per se. He thought we might need to establish a marketing committee, and added that we need to use key quality-of-life terms as "hooks."
Mark said we need to address the fact that the issue of peak oil provokes fear in many/most people, who then go behind "a wall of denial" on it. Having someone they trust, like a minister, introduce a speaker on the subject helps.

Creating Ongoing Projects
Krishna said that LCOG (lottery funds) has resources available for projects that create jobs. Maggie envisioned a project or projects that would satisfy many needs at once – like a community garden employing low- or no-income folks who need its food.
Ravi believes that the Willits model of relocalization is the most advanced so far – eight or ten working groups working toward a more local economy. Maggie said she hoped the event workshops would evolve into ongoing working groups (this is what happened in Willits).

Summary
Ravi summarized by saying that we need

* to use an agenda and a facilitator for our meetings in future to keep us on task. We'll probably also need to form smaller working groups. In addition, we need:

· an outreach strategy focusing on emerging groups concerned about sustainability;

· a coherent vision of relocation, and

· a strategic sense of how we want to use the energy of the event to move toward concrete changes. This includes: relocalization models and initiatives and proposing public policy initiatives that could move us toward relocalization.

For our next meeting Will and Krishna will each write a brief initiative in their areas of expertise and present them in 5-10 minutes to the group. The initiatives will list the 3-6 things they would do. Will's presentation will be on how a farm can create alternative fuels for its own use.

Event title:
4/28/06 Lane County Relocalization event planning

Start:
2007-01-02 11:00 (Calendar)

End:
2007-01-02 12:30

Location:

Location(s)

454 Willamette St.

Eugene, OR, 97401
United States

See map: Google Maps

Contact Email:
deeblack@gmail.com

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