Events

Larry Robinson will be the guest speaker to discuss Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) for Sonoma County. It will be informative on multiple levels, and we wantdiscover if the Energy group can help with this process.

This meeting links to one of the TS Energy Group's top priority goals and is the first step in partnering with others throughout the community to make changes on the energy front.

Location:
St Stephen's Church (classroom)
500 Robinson Way
Sebastopol

Join us for our last Movie Night of the year at the French Garden Restaurant for "What Would Jesus Buy?" This is a film by Reverend Billy & the Church of Life After Shopping, a satire on holiday consumerism, just as the season begins to gear up for it. Father Phil Roundtree of St Stephens Episcopal Church will be the guest speaker after the film for group discussion.

Wednesday, October 27
7:00 - 9:00pm
Please arrive on time!
Come early and enjoy dinner! 

Location:
The French Garden Restaurant
8050 Bodega Avenue, Sebastopol
Google map: http://tinyurl.com/frenchgardenmap

The movie:
Produced by Morgan Spurlock and directed by Rob VanAlkemade, this docu-comedy follows our trials and triumphs across the country as we preach and sing to help holiday-abused Americans find a new Christmas without products.

The film takes the viewer into the homes of families as they max our their credit cards to live up to the Consumer Ideal of Christmas, while also telling personal stories from those who remember the holidays as a simpler, less commercial, and more joyful time. Interviews with labor rights experts, historians, and spiritual leaders reveal how the consumerization of the holiday season over time taught Americans they can only show love for their children by purchasing toys made by other children in overseas sweatshops.

This film has played throughout the US, bringing Fair Trade activists and Evangelical Christians together in darkened movie theaters, emerging with new tools to BUY LESS and GIVE MORE!

 Visit the movie website here.

A Wisdom Council Discussion Group of Transition Sebastopol 

Calling All Elders, Earth Elders, Wannabe Elders, Soon-to-become Elders, or Interested Baby Boomers on up! 


The Elder Salon is a nonhierarchical circle of peers. We’ll introduce the discussion with some thoughts from an elder voice or thought-provoking instigator to kick off our own discovery of what it is WE think and believe about the topic; what WE want and need now and in our future; what WE think should be the course of action and attitudes as we progress into and through our older years

WHY: There are a lot of new ideas about aging, staying youthful in body and spirit, and our role in society and local life. What have our generational contributions been and what is left undone? What are our mistakes and triumphs?

If we don’t want others to determine what becomes of us in very old age, we need to be proactive and begin making conscious, thoughtful choices about our future, how we want to live and be regarded. What role do elders want to play in the coming changes; what wisdom can we offer?

Reminder to all: the Elders Salon is regular and ongoing.

When:
Fourth Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m.

Location:
Sequoia Village Cohousing Common House
459 Sequoia Lane, Sebastopol —
(off Covert Lane, opposite Pacific Market (Fiesta) and west a little, before Pleasant Hill Rd.)
Please PARK ON THE STREET!

see more about this group here: http://transitionsebastopol.org/aboutelderssalon

West County Community Seed Bank meets monthly on the last Saturday of the month (except Nov. and Dec) from 9 -11:30 am to share seeds, plants, resources and local gardening and food information.

Our vision is to create a network of seed savers that build a repository of locally grown seed for Sonoma County gardeners. The seed is offered free to anyone who will use it, and the goal is to have it be an exchange where people take seed and they bring seed to share.  In order to build the network of seed savers, we offer classes in seed saving and other food gardening skills.

The Community Seed Garden is a new project of the WCCSB, located at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Sebastopol.  We are caretaking a 1/2 acre garden the main purpose of which is to grow seed for the seed bank.  The seed garden allows us to grow more seed than many of our home gardens allow.  The garden will be used as an educational tool to teach about the seed saving process.

Creating a local source of seed is an important part of creating a healthy and resilient local food system. Seed is the beginning of the food cycle.
 
Location:
St Stephen's Church
500 Robinson Way in Sebastopol

There is a garden work party from 9:00-10:30
Class from 10:30-11:30, and seeds available all the time. 

Bring plants and seeds, questions and experience to share.
For more information contact Sara at 829-5234

Also check out the seed bank blog at westcountyseedbank.blogspot.com

All are welcome, including children!

Please note location has changed to Laguna Farm! Details below! See you there!

Learn practical skills for resilient and sustainable living.
Workshops & Ongoing Demonstrations

Donation: $10-40 Sliding Scale (no one turned away for lack of funds).

Simple lunch of soup and salad will be available for $5, please bring bowl and utensils.
Kids program for the whole family & children are free.

FULL SCHEDULE HERE:

Please join us at the Sebastopol Grange on Highway 12 for this special event with Richard Heinberg.

With oil production peaking, climate changing, the economy faltering, and fresh water, soil, fish, and minerals depleting at alarming rates, we must aim to increase society’s resilience—its ability to absorb shocks while continuing to function.
   
That means re-localizing much economic activity. We must aim also to shore up basic support services, education, and cultural benefits, while de-emphasizing economic activity that entails non-essential consumption of resources. 

If ever there was a time to get to work and build a resilient community…it is clearly now.

Join us for an evening with Richard Heinberg:

Tuesday, November 16th 
7 – 9 pm  (come early – limited seating)

Suggested donation $10-$20

Location:
Sebastopol Grange Hall 
6000 Sebastopol Ave/Hwy 12

Printable flyer available here (help us spread the word!)

About Richard Heinberg:

Richard is a Senior Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute and is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost Peak Oil educators. He has authored scores of essays and articles that have appeared in numerous journals and on-line publications. He has appeared in many film and television documentaries, including Leonardo DiCaprio’s 11th Hour, and is a recipient of the M. King Hubbert Award for Excellence in Energy Education. Since 2002, he has given over three hundred lectures on oil depletion to a wide variety of audiences.  
 
Richard Heinberg is the author of nine books including: Blackout: Coal, Climate, and the Last Energy Crisis (2009), Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines (2007), The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism & Economic Collapse (2006), Powerdown: Options & Actions for a Post-Carbon World (2004) and The Party's Over: Oil, War & the Fate of Industrial Societies (2003). You can order Richard's books here.
 
This event will benefit Transition US, Transition Sebastopol and the Sebastopol Grange. 
Please bring a canned or packaged food item for the Redwood Food Bank. 
For more info: (707) 318-5046

Thank you to WaccoBB for helping us spread the word.

The Transition Sebastopol Energy Group presents Marcin Jakubowski on "Economy in a Box: Reaching Post-Scarcity Escape Velocity."

Join us for an eye-opening presentation that may explode your index of possibilities – or at the very least – that will leave you with a fresh view on the possibilities before us. This will be a 45 minute presentation followed by a question and answer session.

Suggested donation: $5 (nobody turned away for lack of funds)
Very limited seating, so please arrive early.

Marcin is also speaking on Tuesday night, November 16 in Cotati hosted by Transition Cotati. Details here.

The presentation summarizes the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) – an advanced industrial economy-in-a-box which may be replicated inexpensively anywhere in the world. The GVCS provides the key building blocks for creating modern, resilient, post-carbon communities in a bootstrapping fashion. We will push the limits of thinking and practice of how the GVCS can break the feasibility and cost barriers of building communities from the ground up. This presentation will cover a bold program of requirements which would allow replication cost to reach a minimum. We believe that our discussion is worthwhile because these are not pipe dreams – but realities that we’re substantiating with daily results from Factor e Farm, our living laboratory.

Location: Guayaki Cafe & Mate Bar
6782 Sebastopol Avenue
(opposite Gravenstein Station/Coffee Catz)
Sebastopol

About Marcin Jakubowski:

Marcin Jakubowski received his Ph.D. in fusion physics from the U. Wisconsin, Madison, and has taken a mid-course correction by founding Open Source Ecology (OSE). He will be discussing OSE's work in the presenation - The Global Village Constrcuction Set - An Economy in a Box.

The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is an advanced industrial economy in a box that can be deployed inexpensively anywhere in the world. This social experiment aims to demonstrate, first, that a community of 5 skilled people with the proper tools may attain a comfortable lifestyle (100% food, fuel, energy, housing, and technology needs) with 2 hours of work per day with local resources. Second, OSE aims to demonstrate that a ~200 person resilient community can be created with a capacity to produce all of its own technology, up to the 1990s level of microchip fabrication – also with similar 2 hour per day work schedules.

The cost of creating such a community, and the cost of living, is reduced to one tenth the normal thanks to lifetime design and the savings from using open source software and hardware designs. The components of the GVCS are essential to life and work in the system - rather than decorative knick-knacks - and are "designed for disassembly" so each component, like the LifeTrac tractor for example, is easy to repair with bolts and simple tools such as wrenches, and is easy to modify and improve.

This project aims to collate all learnings of humanity to date regarding quality, modern lifestyles, minus any compromises associated with the status quo. The GVCS is designed to be applicable in any location where soil, sunshine, and water are found. The completion of the GVCS introduces the possibility of closing the industrial divide between the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ worlds. The GVCS is a radical departure whereby individuals are empowered to take responsibility for the world around them – as creators instead of consumers. OSE focuses on turning ‘dirt and sticks’ into advanced civilization via application of modern technology to abundant, local resources. If this is achieved, by tapping humanity's unlimited creative potential – we just may begin evolving to freedom.

Key Links:

• Weblog: http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/
• How to Build a Post-Scarcity Village: http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/2009/09/ose-presence-at-paraflows-festiva... 5 min video
• OSE featured in Plenitude: New Economics of Real Wealth: http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/2010/07/plenitude-the-new-economics-of-tr... – 3 min video
• Economy in a Box: http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/2010/07/economy-in-a-box-presentation-rep... presentation – 45 min video
• Progress on the ground:
  - tractor: http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/2010/07/lifetrac-ii-frame-2/
  - CEB press< <http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/2010/06/full-product-release/
  - hole puncher < <http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/2010/07/open-source-150-ton-hole-puncher/ 
  - torch table < <http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/2010/01/reptab-open-source-torch-table-in-make-zine/
  - crowd funding< <http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/2010/07/getting-ready-to-build-a-better-future/

A Wisdom Council Discussion Group of Transition Sebastopol 

Calling All Elders, Earth Elders, Wannabe Elders, Soon-to-become Elders, or Interested Baby Boomers on up! 


The Elder Salon is a nonhierarchical circle of peers. We’ll introduce the discussion with some thoughts from an elder voice or thought-provoking instigator to kick off our own discovery of what it is WE think and believe about the topic; what WE want and need now and in our future; what WE think should be the course of action and attitudes as we progress into and through our older years

WHY: There are a lot of new ideas about aging, staying youthful in body and spirit, and our role in society and local life. What have our generational contributions been and what is left undone? What are our mistakes and triumphs?

If we don’t want others to determine what becomes of us in very old age, we need to be proactive and begin making conscious, thoughtful choices about our future, how we want to live and be regarded. What role do elders want to play in the coming changes; what wisdom can we offer?

Reminder to all: the Elders Salon is regular and ongoing.

When:

During November & December, we will be meeting the THIRD Thursday of the month (to avoid conflict with the holidays).
Usually the fourth Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m.

Location:
Sequoia Village Cohousing Common House
459 Sequoia Lane, Sebastopol —
(off Covert Lane, opposite Pacific Market (Fiesta) and west a little, before Pleasant Hill Rd.)
Please PARK ON THE STREET!

see more about this group here: http://transitionsebastopol.org/aboutelderssalon

facilitated by Julia Bystrova, Angel Rodriguez and Kari Stettler

You are invited to participate in a "What is Community?"  presentation, salon, and experiential workshop.

The salon will be asking such questions as:

• “What do we want our community to be like?"
• "What are we doing to make that happen?"
• "What works in this community?"
• "What doesn't work and how could we shift it?"

This will be a juicy, deep and frank discussion about what is in our hearts, souls and minds about this community we live. 
The discussion will be followed by experiential exercises that generate a sense of community, based on Joana Macy's work.

Location:
St. Stephens Church
500 Robinson Way
Sebastopol

We look forward to your presence!