Feburary E-mail Blast
It’s been a very cold and snow filled 2007 so far. We love it! It does keep us a little quieter than usual, retreating, dreaming, planning, and skiing. However, on the new moon it will be the Chinese New Year, so we come out of our shell to wish you a Happy Year of the Boar!!
Here’s some of what we’re up to:
New Project!
Before Traverse City got snow, there was snow in Newberry in the Upper Peninsula of MI. We are very happy to get opportunities travel to there and work with the Taquamenon Area Civic Center Committee. This group has been working diligently to design and green-build a multi-purpose civic center for the community and has hired SEEDS to help them realize their vision.
Great Lakes Bioneers 2007
Planning is underway! Our core committee has spent time in retreat together to envision the upcoming
conference (October 19-21) and all the fun events we will be involved in leading up to October. We spent a considerable amount of time pouring over all the comments and evaluations we’ve received and are cooking up schemes to improve. We are attempting to create more time. Crazy alchemy? No, we are simply exploring effective ways to overlap programming during the conference - so some of the beamed speakers will be repeated at different times of day and we plan to open the lunch line earlier to alleviate the mad rush for fresh greens! If you are not already on, sign up for GLBioneer specific updates by emailing: announce-subscribe@list.glbconference.org
Congratulations!
Aarti Subramaniam, SEEDS’ Associate and Board Secretary, has completed her PhD in Human Development. Her thesis was on the relevance of community organizations on rural youth.
Daisy May Erlewine, author of that fresh hit, I Love to Eat Greens, Greens, Greens, has released a new CD. It’s great! Find a CD release party near you. Pete and I will catch her at Shorts Brewery this Saturday…see you there?
April 9th, 2007 at 7:29 am
Greetings–
Early in February, a Permaculture friend of mine in CA sent me the intitial draft of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Global Warming. I don’t know how he got it, but it was the real thing and I downloaded it, read it, all of it….full of charts, graphs, facts….a few months later…I’m immersed in the Earth Day parade building—And one of the parade musicians comes in with the news of the IPCC report being all over the news….he says that after the usual BS of “How are we going to present this to the people”….debates….it is reported that the US was leading the pack of those “rephrasing and toning down the dire projections” and just prior to our seasonal, one-day recognition of the Earth, with our annual parade, it finally hits the media here.
The universe–not just scientists—-is asking us to speed up on ALL levels.
Having an Earth Day parade on the streets of Traverse City, might seem like a lighthearted effort to truly take responsibility for and do something about global warming—but I would like you to know that one of the five areas or effects of global warming that we are broaching is the will of the people—our complaceny and unfortunate ignorance in the scheme of things. The “Center” section of our storytelling parade will represent this “fact” and effect of global warming, with a group of Radical Elemental Chickens. Farm animals will have a starring role in this year’s parade.
Our presentation will be both serious, and entertaining, but I’ll be honest, even though we invite and envision hundreds of people to both participate and spectate as we wind through the Downtown area on our parade route, we are not interested in appeasing the masses in the sense of increasing business—-or spring tourism. But this parade certainly won’t hurt the Downtown area and it’s businesses, that’s for sure. As much as we love our beautiful home-town, the Earth Day Parade, unlike the Cherry Festia, it is not about our pocketbooks or our financial futures. It has more to do with our survival on a greater scope. No joking there.
We are looking for participation and support to continue the very, difficult and complicated task of community building and civic pride, during tough and frightening times. We are bringing arts education and environmental education together with children, teens and their families, people of all economic and intergenerational habitats,
at a time when funding for those programs continues to be cut. Can we possible cut them any further?
The ethics that motivate us are: Caring for the Earth, Caring for the People and giving something back….It is the flip side of MORE in the consumerist sense…..but absolutely the MORE of human intelligence, creative environmental education and of the practice of human compassion for all species. Stepping up and doing the right thing. On Earth, our home. MORE, more, more of that.
We want to be on the streets as the people of this community, standing behind the City Commission’s righteous decision to adopt our version of the Kyoto Agreement and deciminate both information and support to those that want to do something about it. To truly take action. Additionally, we want the Police escort to PLEASE respect our rule of NO CARS being driven in the parade, and would so appreciate other motorized drivers to embrace that request too. Just for one day? One day— on foot, or bike.
Our 2007 Parade Design Team, being comprised of thirty, curious and energetic students from TCAPS Montesssori, along with Little Artshram, Rhythmic Adventures, the TC Sierra Club, and many volunteers invites YOU to get involved and join us for the annual Spring Earth Day events in Traverse City….
GRAND TRAVERSE EARTH DAY PARADE 2007!
Earth Day Community Art Studio & Workshop Schedule
It takes a whole village — and then some — to put together an Earth Day
Parade and Community Picnic. This years’ theme is “Global Warming: The
Tipping Point”. If you want to plan, brainstorm, organize, fundraise, give
money and/or supplies, sculpt, sew, papier-mâché, staple, build, paint, cook
food, usher, clean up, sing songs, play music, or dance please join us!
EARTH DAY PUBLIC WORKSHOPS: Help build the puppets for the parade! Workshops
are low-cost to free and open to the public. For a month of weekends,
beginning March 24th through Earth Day, April 21st, the Art Center of
Traverse City will be transformed into a giant studio where Little Artshram
and Rhythmic Adventures and volunteers create the Earth Day Parade. Workshop
times: Fridays 5-9 PM, Sat. 12-5 PM, Sun. 12-5 PM.
MORE INFORMATION: www.littleartshram.org, 231-510-3491
Contact our Volunteer Coordinator: Robin Nance at nance@chartermi.net or
231-947-3096
Contact our Workshop Coordinator: Lauren Bornshein at lauborn@gmail.com or
231-409-2361
Our Earth Day Community Art Studio is located at: the Art Center of Traverse
City: Corner of 11th and Elmwood (Women’s Resource Center Bldg.), Traverse
City, MI 49684
STEP IT UP TC! Get Lit for Less! Rally: You are invited to join The Traverse Group of the Sierra Club, on Saturday, April 14th at 1:30 pm as we join a thousand other communities across the USA and host a TEPIT UP RALLY for the environment.
Help us send a strong message to Congress: “Cut carbon emissions and protect our enivironment now!”
Meet in the Chase Bank Courtyard, across from Horizon Books, downtown TC, bring banners, signs, puppets, friends, kids and neighbors! We’ll proceed down Front Street and end up along the Parkway, where we will stand for an hour in solidarity with hundreds of others throughout the country.
For more information on Step it Up, go to www.stepitup2007.org, questions? Call Monica at 231-325-6812 or Peg at
231-409-2499