A MONTHLY EMAIL PUBLICATION of the FIC since 1999. May 23, 2004 1 The Farm Communities Conference -- Next Weekend 2 Visions Of Utopia Video: Volume 1 On DVD Now In Stock! 3 Featured Bookshelf Title At Sale Price 4 Communities Magazine Summer Issue #123 5 Directory 4th Edition Plans 6 More Events Late Summer & Fall 2004 7 We Want You! To Join The FIC _________________________________________________________________ 1 THE FARM COMMUNITIES CONFERENCE - NEXT WEEKEND May 28-30, 2004 "Tools for Change" An FIC co-sponsored event _________________________________________________________________ Our conference is just around the corner. Calls and emails are coming on strong with people making plans to attend. See you there! A look at a few of the workshops and presenters: Strawbale Home tour - A family residence on The Farm - roomy, comfortable, efficient and beautiful Tennessee Greenlands - Urban Eco Living for Political Change Where Your Taxes Really Go Both by Karl Meyer, Nashville Greenlands Community * 44 years of successfully refusing to pay refusing war taxes. * Author of much of the literature available from the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee. * Founder of Nashville Greenlands Community - an urban activist center with an organic garden landscape. * Karl has also been involved in civil disobedience at the School of the Americas and the office of Senator Frist. A shining example of walking the talk. The Underground House - Mike Oehler This guy literally wrote the book on subterranean housing and sold more than 75,000 copies of "The $50 & Up Underground House Book." This is the same course author and instructor Mike Oehler has taught for architecture departments at colleges and universities across North America and Europe. He has the material down pat and is able to anticipate your confusion and questions. Preserving Biodiversity, Publicly Available Seeds and Breeds Michael Sligh, is the Director of Agricultural Policy for the Rural Advancement Foundation International -USA (RAFI-USA), for whom he has worked for over 20 years. His current duties include; development and promotion of sustainable agriculture reforms, including domestic and international developments, monitoring and evaluation of biotechnology and the promotion of agricultural biodiversity. He has traveled, worked and spoken in many parts of the world concerning agricultural issues. He is an NGO member to the UN-based FAO/WHO - CODEX Commission, serving on the food labeling committee for the development of international biotech and organic food labeling guidelines. Michael is author of numerous publications including, Toward Organic Integrity, a guide to the development of US organic standards, Who Owns Organic?, and co-author of Signposts for Successful Sustainable Agricultural Labeling. The Power of Dissent in the 21st Century Alan Graf and The Northwest Constitutional Rights Center is actively engaged in several court cases against the city of Portland regarding suppression of dissent through the brutalization of protesters by police. Alan will be flying in directly from a court date and possible settlement with the city of Portland that establishes ground rules for how police can treat protestors, a ruling that could have national implications. Alan Graf Lawyer activist from Portland, OR, Farm resident, Plenty International volunteer and PeaceRoots Alliance legal counsel Chair, Policy Board of the Portland Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild Lead Counsel for the August 22 law suit against the City of Portland for massive pepper spraying and rubber bulleting of peaceful protesters NLG coordinator for the Portland legal observer team Co-author of the Mayor's Majority Report on Police Accountability. Co-host of Voices from the Edge--Political talk radio which streams on the web at www.kboo.org and his web site: www.hippielawyer.com Saturday Night: THB - The Farm's own homegrown 2nd generation, featuring a horn section, jamming out some great tunes under the stars. You haven't boogies until you've let it loose at a Farm party! A liberating experience. For more information or to register, contact Thomas or Douglas at Village Media thomas ( at ) villagemedia.com 931-964-2590 To register online visit http://www.thefarmcommunity.com/conference All the best, Douglas Village Media Douglas ( at ) villagemedia.com _________________________________________________________________ 2 VISIONS OF UTOPIA VIDEO: Volume 1 on DVD now in stock! by Geoph Kozeny Producer/Director _________________________________________________________________ Yippie! All of the various technical and logistical glitches have been overcome, and we now have in stock plenty of DVD copies of this award-winning documentary about intentional communities. I've already received orders or inquiries for nearly 20 copies (plus a wholesale order for 70 copies), so it's clear that many folks prefer this format when available. SPECIAL DEALS STILL AVAILABLE 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. These are now in hand and ready to ship. 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 First-time purchasers: To order a copy of Volume One (VHS or DVD) for yourself or to share with your friends: Volume One | 94 minutes color VHS (American) or PAL (European) or DVD format $30 plus $3 S/H standard mail in US Order VHS format online (DVD format not yet posted for sale at our webstore) http://store.ic.org/products/visions-of-utopia-video.html More detailed info about the Video http://fic.ic.org/video Geoph Order VHS or DVD by phone fax or mail FIC :: 138 Twin Oaks Rd :: Louisa VA 23093 800-462-8240 :: fax 540-894-4112 _________________________________________________________________ 3 FEATURED BOOKSHELF TITLE at SALE PRICE by Alline Anderson, Community Bookshelf manager _________________________________________________________________ Great Meetings! How to Facilitate Like a Pro by Dee Kelsey & Pam Plumb 1999, 173 pages It's not flashy, it's not glamorous, but our special this month is an excellent book. At the sale price, it's an excellent value, too. Good consensus process depends upon strong, thoughtful, compassionate faciliation. Fortunately it is a skill that can be studied and learned. Great Meetings! is a user-friendly resource book designed to help meeting leaders, facilitators, and participants understand the important steps for planning and facilitating a great meeting. Well-written and presented in a straight-forward and engaging way, it offers lots of tips and tools for beginning facilitators, and might also have a few tricks to teach experienced facilitators. It also contains an abundance of group development ideas. I highly recommend it! Sale price $21.75 (25% off) http://store.ic.org/products/email-spec-offer-may2004a.html Order online, by phone or mail order Shipping/handling as follows 3.00 S/H for first item 1.00 S/H for each additional item All prices shown here are for Standard Mail postal delivery within US. Enews special offers are valid through [[offerdate]]. Information, catalog, ordering and prices for delivery outside US http://store.ic.org/community-bookshelf.html Community Bookshelf RR 1 Box 156 Rutledge MO 63563 800-995-8342 bookshelf ( at ) ic ( dot ) org _________________________________________________________________ 4 COMMUNITIES MAGAZINE UPCOMING SUMMER ISSUE #123 "A Day in The Life" _________________________________________________________________ What's it really like living in an intentional community or ecovillage? "A Day in the Life" is the theme of Communities magazine's summer issue which is slated to be mailed in late June. This issue describes each author's typical day at widely different communities around the world. Theme articles include ~ By the Plume of Popocatepetl (Tepoztlán, Mexico) ~ Summertime and the Livin's Busy (Upstate New York) ~ A Spring Day at Tamera (Colos, Portugal) ~ Living the Good Life (Southern Missouri) ~ La Caravana Arcoiris por La Paz, "The Rainbow Caravan of Peace," (Iquique, Chile) ~ In Deep Forest and Meadow (Western Oregon) ~ Pilgrimage in a Desert Monastery (Syria) "It's an exciting, eye-opening issue," says editor Diana Leafe Christian. Other articles include How To Really Support Ecovillages (Not Just Hugs and Theories) by Enrique Hidalgo of Quilla Tunari Ecovillage in Equador and Part II of Seeing the Forest _and_ the Trees using Earthaven's Forestry Co-op to illustrate the challenges of visionary community-based businesses. _________________________________________________________________ 5 DIRECTORY 4TH EDITION PLANS _________________________________________________________________ A sizable group of FIC volunteers met at the April 2004 FIC Organizational Meeting to sketch out a plan for the next Directory edition. While nothing is even close to officially decided yet, the planners are looking at offering an online searchable communities database as well as a print version. Planning meetings will continue in the coming months, using an email discussion list as the primary collaboration tool. One model implementation of such an online database, developed separately from the FIC, can be seen here http://www.icdb.org/ icdb.org is a self-serve, open, free, multi-lingual and paperless database/directory, serving intentional communities, and their organizations, individuals and groups searching for intentional communities, and curious aliens observing the evolution of the earth's future civilization (and/or beyond) from afar... The developer of the above website has offered the project code to the FIC, a proposal that is being actively considered. More news of the Directory 4th Edition project will appear in this Newsletter in the coming months. Concrete official plans are likely to come out of the Fall FIC Organizational Meeting. To correspond specifically about getting your community listed in the next Directory please contact dir-updates ( at ) ic ( dot ) org For actively maintained current lists of intentional communities please visit these websites http://iclist.ic.org/ http://www.cohousing.org/cmty/groups.html _________________________________________________________________ 6 MORE FIC CO-SPONSORED EVENTS LATE SUMMER & FALL 2004 Twin Oaks Communities Conference Global Ecovillage North American Conference Many more events listed here http://www.ic.org/events/ _________________________________________________________________ TWIN OAKS COMMUNITIES CONFERENCE Labor Day Weekend - September 3-6th Announcing SPECIAL MONDAY PROGRAM!! Monday September 6th As a special bonus to the conference weekend packed with great workshops, music and networking in the Virginian woods, we are pleased to announce this year's Utopian Architect Program. Our focus this year is on Creating Healthy Culture. This is a highly interactive, jump around, get-ready-for- startling-flashes- of-revelation-and-provocative-ideas two-part workshop. We'll glance at mainstream cultural messages and means of transmission and focus on the vibrant culture we are co-creating in our communities. Looking at the wheel of the year, we'll look at the events we celebrate already and will design a new holydays and cultural eruptions through shout outs and small group work. We will explore the importance of: * individual creative expression in daily life * creative expression within community * cultural interface out to local area (as cultural interface with mainstream culture) * bridges between our communities (roadshows, sharing theatre productions, The Community Bus) Come experiment with us as we custom design our own healthy, vibrant, sexy culture, unique to our needs. Anissa Ljanta Co-secretary of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities Radical educator & activist for social change and earth rights 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 The GEN N. American Conference is Co-sponsored by: The Global Ecovillage Network The Fellowship for Intentional Community Communities Journal Hollyhock and Renewal Partners. Have you selected your representative, yet? Do you want to be involved in the next 1000-2000 person Communities public event? Do you think a N. American purchasing cooperative is a good idea? Are we as Community properly represented by the Credit Unions that exist; do we support them? Have you ever been to an event attended by 3 Founders of major Ecovillages; did you have the chance to speak and interact with them (Crystal Waters, EcoVillage of Ithaca, Los Angeles EcoVillage)? If you had 5 days and nights with a land-use attorney, professional planners, architects, and winners of UN Habitat Awards, what questions would you ask? Can your Community afford not to send someone to attend this Conference? For more info and to register see: http://www.ecovillage.org/conference/index.htm Tuition Rollback $852 CDN/est. $629 USD Camping available on and off site. For accommodations reservations at Hollyhock call 1-800-933-6339. _________________________________________________________________ 7 WE WANT YOU! TO JOIN THE FIC _________________________________________________________________ Seeking more sense of community in your life? Want to help others discover the benefits of cooperative living? FIC membership benefits include invitations, discounts, credit union access, and a newsletter -- but we think the biggest benefit is the knowledge that you're helping bring into reality the vision of a cooperative world. Read more about membership and sign up online using our secure server http://store.ic.org/products/fic-membership.html More info. Request a membership form to be sent by mail. RR 1 Box 156 Rutledge MO 63563 800-995-8342 fic ( at ) ic ( dot ) org Learn more about the mission of the Fellowship organization http://fic.ic.org/index.html