The incredible storms that doused us over the holidays have subsided, leaving behind swollen rivers, green grass and deep appreciation for sunny moments. Willits, although severly flooded, seems to be recovering well, with little serious damage.

At WELL, we are busy planning our next events, reviewing our progress and archiving our work so far.

In this blog: upcoming event, "The Party's Over" radio show, school farm update, local networking news/exciting convocation event.

JESSICA PRENTICE EVENT

We are looking forward to tasting some winter root vegetable soup while listening to Jessica talk about local, seasonal food. She does a great job of offering food that is healthy and nourishing, emphasizing the connection between food and culture.
She will be speaking Monday, January 23, 6:30pm at the Willits Community Center.

THE PARTY'S OVER

Jason Bradford has been hosting a radio show about relocalizing our community on alternating Monday mornings. This show airs on our community supported radio station KZYX&Z 90.7 and 91.5fm, from 9-10am.
If you visit KZYX&Z's website, www.kzyx.org, you can stream this program live.

Recently, Jason hosted Virginia Abernathy in a conversation about population and carrying capacity. Virginia is trained in anthropology and teaches psychiatry in the medical department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. She has done fascinating research linking US economic policy worldwide with population and immigration. Some of her views are controversial in that she is a proponent of reducing immigration. Ultimatly, she offers a unique critique of US foreign policy and resource consumption that is both conservative and comprehensive.

An upcoming show will feature Eric Brende, a MIT graduate student who chose to spend 18 months living with an Amish community for his senior thesis. He is the author of the book "Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology". He offers a different perspective on how and why we may want to reduce energy dependance.

SCHOOL FARM

Work on the school farm continues. Last week the perimeter was staked and plans are currently being made in regards to the irrigation system.

LOCAL NETWORKING

WELL will be sponsoring a panel of all the groups in Mendocino County who are working on localizing. To date there are five active groups - Willits Economic Localization (WELL), Greater Ukiah Localization Project (GULP), Sustainable Laytonville (SL), Anderson Valley Food Shed Project (AVFSP), Coastal Economic Localization Link (CELL). All of these groups will be converging in Willits on February 6 to talk about what we've learned and how to keep it all growing.

WELL is actively planning a convocation of similar groups from the San Francisco bay area north into Oregon. We will hold this event in April of 2006 to talk about best practices, develop consistant outreach and to network with each other. We are looking for sponsors for this event. More details will come soon.