A MONTHLY EMAIL PUBLICATION of the FIC since 1999. April 17, 2004 1 Fellowship Organizational Meeting This Month! 2 The Farm Communities Conference & Activist Summit 3 Communities Magazine Current & Upcoming Issues 4 More Events Late Summer & Fall 2004 5 Visions Of Utopia Video: Update On The Volume #1 DVD 6 We Want You! To Join The FIC _________________________________________________________________ 1 FELLOWSHIP ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING this month! April 30 to May 2, 2004 Hosted by Highline Crossing Cohousing | Littleton, CO _________________________________________________________________ Highlights of this meeting include our 5-year strategic planning, looking at possibilities for collaborating with like-valued organizations, selecting new board members, review plans for an FIC event this coming fall in Florida, and initiating a new ritual of stringing a FIC bead necklace, symbolic of important events in the Fellowship's 17-year history. Come enjoy the stories and oral history of our organization. Cost will be for food and a cook which will be $20 per day. There is no fee for lodging in people's homes, camping, or on the floor in the common house with other attendees. The FIC's Evening Soiree will be 7-9 pm Saturday May 1 at our host community Highline Crossing. While everyone is welcome, we are making a special pitch to built (or nearly built) cohousing groups in the state, to talk about what's going on that you're excited about, and share with others where you'd like help. It will be a time for socializing and identifying resources -- both regional and national-- which can help us all get more community in our lives. We invite you to come and also to help us get the word out. Please post info at home and tell your community friends. Among other things, there will be a conversation about the possibility of doing a two-year training in dynamic meeting facilitation, especially geared toward Colorado cohousing groups. FIC and Highline will provide refreshments for this after dinner got together; we'll all be responsible for bringing good energy. Look forward to seeing you there. If you are interested in attending please contact me immediately! Jenny Upton 434-361-1417 Eastern time zone jennyup ( at ) cstone.net http://fic.ic.org/artofcmty.html _________________________________________________________________ 2 THE FARM COMMUNITIES CONFERENCE & ACTIVIST SUMMIT Memorial Day Weekend May 28 - 30, 2004 Summertown, TN _________________________________________________________________ The Farm Communities Conference and Activist Summit Co-sponsored by The Fellowship of Intentional Communities and PeaceRoots Alliance. Organized and produced by Village Media Events. Things are coming together for our conference weekend. Please contact us if you have any questions. We have plenty of room for camping. Dorm space is limited so get with us early if you want to reserve a bed. Workshops: War Taxes and Urban Eco-Living -- Karl Meyer has been a war tax resister for 44 years. Karl is also the founder of Nashville Greenlands, an urban eco-project which combines low impact lifestyle with political activism. The project has purchased and renovated 2 houses and additional lots in a Nashville, TN low income neighborhood, planted gardens and now provides living space for volunteers working at the local Peace and Justice Center and other projects. Karl was arrested the last 2 years at the School of the Americas for refusing to be searched. He is quite a guy. Music: THB -- Saturday night will feature THB (The Homegrown Band), Farm 2nd generation funk with a horn section. Become one under the stars with the booty shakin' nation. FIC Auction: Don't forget to bring items for the FIC auction also on Saturday night, right after dinner. Harvey and Laird will be performing their shtick. http://www.thefarmcommunity.com/conference thomas ( at ) villagemedia.com _________________________________________________________________ 3 COMMUNITIES MAGAZINE CURRENT & UPCOMING ISSUES Community Seeker's Guide Spring 2004 #122 _________________________________________________________________ CURRENT SPRING 2004 ISSUE - The Community Seeker's Guide Co-editors Julie Pennington of House of Commons Co-op in Austin, Texas and regular editor Diana Leafe Christian are excited about the imminent release of this issue of Communities magazine. Articles include My Marathon Tour of Communities, highlights from a five-month community-seeking odyssey, and Excerpts from a Community Seeker Journal, observations and personal insights from one seeker's four years of community visiting. Other articles include Julie's Planning a Community Visit, drawing on her experiences as a traveling community seeker, and Visiting Communities: Tips for Guests and Hosts, offering more good ideas to create an enjoyable visit for seekers and communities alike. Guess Who Coming to Dinner shows how one community hosts its visitors and potential new members, and Take a Deep Breath and Plunge explores how joining a community can be exhilarating, discouraging, uplifting, and intimidating in turn. In FIC executive secretary's Laird Schaub's Opening Up to Strangers and the Strange Ways that Kindness May Be Repaid, we learn the unusual way his community attracted one of its most committed members, and in Tree Bressen's Radical Resource Sharing, we learn what FEC communities have to offer the community seeker. Two widely different communities describe their struggles to find new members in the Our Story column: The Challenge of Seeking New Community Members. You'll also enjoy The Quest for Communal Life in New York City, and Geoph Kozeny's Peripatetic Communitarian' column: Seek First Community Within. The spring issue also features When and Why to Block Consensus, as well as Baptized by Pachamama, about the Ecovillage Network of the Americas' huge gathering at Macchu Picchu in Peru in September. ------------ COMING IN THE SUMMER 2004 ISSUE: A Day in the Life. What is a typical day like in many communities? UPCOMING Fall 2004 issue theme: Spiritual Communities. UPCOMING Winter 2004 issue theme: Student Co-ops. Get a sample issue, renew or subscribe here http://store.ic.org/products/communities-magazine.html http://store.ic.org/products/communities-magazine-sampl.html Sample issues by surface mail $6 US - $7 Canada - $8 Other Subscriptions one year 4 issues $20 US - $24 Canada - $26 Other Order by phone fax or mail FIC * 138 Twin Oaks Rd * Louisa VA 23093 800-462-8240 fax 540-894-4112 _________________________________________________________________ 4 MORE EVENTS LATE SUMMER & FALL 2004 Twin Oaks Communities Conference Global Ecovillage North American Conference Many more events posted on ic.org calendar _________________________________________________________________ COMMUNITIES CONFERENCE at TWIN OAKS An FIC Co-Sponsored Event | Labor Day Weekend September 3-5 Twin Oaks Community near Louisa Virginia We are excited to reunite our super duper organizing team to bring you the annual Communities Conference at Twin Oaks. With over 25 different communities represented annually, it is a prime opportunity to network amongst other community minded folks. It is an ideal event for people who are looking for community as well for those already living in community to share and learn from each others experiences. It is a co-created conference, with shining-eyed people contributing their helping hands, ideas, perspectives and energy. There will be the famous Saturday night dance, campfires, singing, open space, workshops by experienced and dynamic presenters, the infamous mudpit, hammocks, good food and more. An unforgettable weekend for many! Join us at Twin Oaks' conference site in the woods! We'll be delving into the nuts and bolts of community with a variety of workshops: group decision-making, sustainability, intentional relationships, alternative building, creating healthy culture, group living skills, and more. Children are welcome. The Conference is co-sponsored by the Fellowship for Intentional Community, the Federation of Egalitarian Communities and Twin Oaks Community. Communities Conference at Twin Oaks 138 Twin Oaks Rd Louisa VA 23093 540-894-5126 conference ( at ) twinoaks.org http://www.twinoaks.org/conference --------------- THE GLOBAL ECOVILLAGE NETWORK NORTH AMERICAN CONFERENCE An FIC Co-Sponsored Event | September 20-25, 2004 Hollyhock Retreat Centre, Cortes Island, British Columbia September in the Gulf Islands...rugged peaks, placid ocean vistas, towering cedar forests, comfortable days and nights… freshly caught Pacific Salmon, barbecued oysters plucked from the shore minutes away...all to be found at The Global Ecovillage North American Conference Whether arriving on the ferry by foot, or seaplane, if you fit any of the following descriptions you are most welcome: Intentional community elders & activists, co-housing enthusiasts, alternative energy OEM manufacturers, green builders, planners, and architects, gov’t agencies, financial institutions, foundations, NGOs, academics and philanthropists committed to social change. Who is scheduled to speak: Lois Arkin, founder of the LA Ecovillage and Executive Dir. of the Cooperative Resources and Services Project * Albert Bates, President and Chair of the Global Ecovillage Network * Diana Christian, author and Editor of Communities Journal * Deborah Curran, Chair of Smart Growth BC and Sustainable Land Use Lawyer for West Coast Environmental Law * Robert Gilman, coauthor of the seminal work which defined "Ecovillages", founder of the Context Institute, and former editor and publisher of IN CONTEXT * Daniel Greenberg, Executive Dir. of Living Routes and ENA Council member * Max Lindegger, Director of GEN for Oceania/Asia, Australian Prime Minister's Centenary Medal winner, and co-designer of the UN World Habitat Award winning Crystal Waters Permaculture Village * Greg Ramsey, principal/designer of Village Habitat Design, LLC, and co-designer of the UN World Habitat Award winning East Lake Commons Co-Housing Community * Laird Schaub, founding member and Executive Secretary of the Fellowship for Intentional Community And More to be Announced... Can I tent? Of course. Can I walk naked on the beach? Many folks do. Hope to see you there! Russ Purvis, GEN North American Conference Facilitator To find out more or to register http://www.ecovillage.org/conference/index.htm --------------- To read more about the above events and many others of general interest please see our events calendar http://www.ic.org/events/ _________________________________________________________________ 5 VISIONS OF UTOPIA VIDEO: Update on the Volume #1 DVD _________________________________________________________________ I'm frustrated to report that it's been necessary to renegotiate the deal with the replicator who is reproducing Vol #1 of "Visions of Utopia" onto DVDs. He and I thought we had all the details worked out, but at the last minute discovered that the cardboard sleeves we had been quoted were available only in runs of 20,000 units. Argh--that's out of my ballpark of affordability. My original plan--now scrapped--had been to use cardboard sleeves instead of the standard plastic DVD cases (a) because it seems so much more ecological than putting more plastic into the consumer/waste stream, and (b) because it would surely be much cheaper--wrong! It turns out that almost all of the black plastic DVD cases are made in China and bought by the truckload at pennies apiece. I had planned to go with the cardboard "wallet" sleeve design (opens like a book), but by the time all the costs were added up (including printing, cutting, folding, and gluing), the cardboard sleeves would have cost me an additional $500. So plastic it is for the first run. At least I can still choose to not have them shrink-wrapped. Additionally, the format switch required yet another unplanned task for my priority list: I had to do a quick redesign of all the artwork for the DVD cover. Fortunately it's fairly similar in size and shape to the existing VHS cover, so the related headache factor was relatively minor. As noted last month, DVDs have five main advantages over the VHS format: 1) They're more compact and thus considerably smaller 2) The resolution is slightly better 3) There's no difference between US and other formats 4) They have chapter points--so it's easy to begin with any segment or jump back and forth between chapters. 5) You'll never need to rewind the tape! SPECIAL DEALS These deals are available only from me--NOT through the FIC offices or web. If you're already the proud owner of Volume #1 in VHS format, you can now buy a second copy of that volume in DVD format for only $10 postpaid. I expect to have these in hand and ready to ship by May 10th. Offer good through 12/31/04. And if you ordered both tapes (i.e. both volumes, including everyone who ordered the video prior to Sept 2001) you can switch your Tape #2 over to DVD format if you'd prefer. To take advantage of either or both offers, email geoph ( at ) ic ( dot ) org -Geoph Kozeny Producer/Director To get a VHS copy of Volume One now for yourself or to share with your friends: Volume One | 94 minutes color | VHS (American) or PAL (European) $30 plus $3 S/H standard mail in US Check our website, next month's eNews or email us to check availability of Volume One in DVD format. More info and order online http://store.ic.org/products/visions-of-utopia-video.html http://fic.ic.org/video Geoph