Events

**Note Location Change!**

Theme of the Month:  Food Production

This weekend will focus on Food Production…The how, what and where we can grow food for ourselves! Whether you want to grow sprouts, a windowsill garden, or a food forest around your home, this class will cover the practical aspects and options for food production, teaching you how to assess your home, develop a plan and optimize your time involvement while implementing it. We will be looking at what can be grown at our home... like sprouts, mushrooms, bees for honey, chickens, fruits, veggies, etc. We will also cover the various necessary components of producing food, i.e. the garden plan, soil testing, soil amendments, irrigation, composting, worm bins, animal husbandry, insectaries, etc.

We have 3 wonderful guest speakers/instructors this month; Courtney Dellello, Robin Burton and Julia Valentine. Courtney Dellello designs beautiful and bountiful food gardens that provide for the exquisite cuisine of a well-known winery restaurant in Napa, and who also teaches a myriad of gardening and growing classes for the Santa Rosa Junior College at Shone Farm. She will help you design a garden that provides for the exquisite cuisine of your home dining. Robin Burton from Sonoma State University teaches Native Plants and Agroecology. She is also a certified organic grower who you may have seen at our local farmers market in Sebastopol. She will walk us through each element of producing food in our gardens. Julia Valentine teaches Permaculture, and is also on the initiating team for Transition Sebastopol. She will be hosting us at her home in the late afternoon, after we have toured a couple of gardens along the way. There she will talk about transitioning the land around a home, show you how she built her hoop house, the seasonal sowing therein, and give you hands on instruction of the different techniques for handling soil, planting and optimizing growth yields.

**Note Location Change!**

Theme of the Month:  Food Production

This weekend will focus on Food Production…The how, what and where we can grow food for ourselves! Whether you want to grow sprouts, a windowsill garden, or a food forest around your home, this class will cover the practical aspects and options for food production, teaching you how to assess your home, develop a plan and optimize your time involvement while implementing it. We will be looking at what can be grown at our home... like sprouts, mushrooms, bees for honey, chickens, fruits, veggies, etc. We will also cover the various necessary components of producing food, i.e. the garden plan, soil testing, soil amendments, irrigation, composting, worm bins, animal husbandry, insectaries, etc.

We have 3 wonderful guest speakers/instructors this month; Courtney Dellello, Robin Burton and Julia Valentine. Courtney Dellello designs beautiful and bountiful food gardens that provide for the exquisite cuisine of a well-known winery restaurant in Napa, and who also teaches a myriad of gardening and growing classes for the Santa Rosa Junior College at Shone Farm. She will help you design a garden that provides for the exquisite cuisine of your home dining. Robin Burton from Sonoma State University teaches Native Plants and Agroecology. She is also a certified organic grower who you may have seen at our local farmers market in Sebastopol. She will walk us through each element of producing food in our gardens. Julia Valentine teaches Permaculture, and is also on the initiating team for Transition Sebastopol. She will be hosting us at her home in the late afternoon, after we have toured a couple of gardens along the way. There she will talk about transitioning the land around a home, show you how she built her hoop house, the seasonal sowing therein, and give you hands on instruction of the different techniques for handling soil, planting and optimizing growth yields.

Do you want to add your energy and ideas to new Reskilling classes and events! Join us at this meeting!

At this organizing meeting, we will be working on a class series on resilient gardening. We are also exploring tours for the spring and maybe a compost class for international compost week.

Location:
St Stephen's Church
500 Robinson Way in Sebastopol

 
Attend the first Community Kick-off for the County-wide 350 Home & Garden Challenge.
Grow Food, Conserve Water, Save Energy, Build Community!

The 350 Home & Garden Challenge is happening again this year May 14th & 15th, 2011.  Last year, we succeeded in mobilizing 628 gardens in a single weekend, 60% of which were new gardens! We have changed the name to the 350 Home and Garden Challenge to bring in an important element: home energy efficiency & energy use reduction. This specifically highlights the need for holistic and integrated solutions. Learn more about this, and other exciting information about this year's challenge by attending the Kick-off on March 15th!

When:  Tuesday, March 15, 7 p.m.
Where: Sonoma County Water Agency Meeting Room, 404 Aviation Blvd., Santa Rosa
 
Transition Sebastopol is the organizing group for the 350 Challenge in Sebastopol and hopes to build a strong team to do some great projects around the area.  If you are interested in getting involved and can't make the kick off meeting in Santa Rosa , contact Sara McCamant at outreach@350challenge.net

A Collaborative Day of Co-Creating the New Leadership and Organizational Structure of Transition Sebastopol

When: Sunday, March 20, 1 to 6 p.m.
Where: St. Stephens Church, 500 Robinson Way, Sebastopol
Suggested Donation: $10 to $20--No one turned away for lack of funds! 
 
Designing and launching Transition Sebastopol 2.0
 
This event is open to the participants of all Transition Sebastopol working groups. Please register for this important, not-to-be-missed event through the working group leaders. 
 
If you do not belong to a working group, but feel you should be at the event, please contact Wendy Taylor at 824-8989.
 
Transition Sebastopol is entering its cocoon. On this day TS participants will create the butterfly that will emerge.

When: Sunday, March 20, 7:00 p.m. (Circle at 7:30)
Where: St. Stephens Church, 500 Robinson Way, Sebastopol
 
Come nourish and rejuvenate your Heart and Soul in an atmosphere of singing, sharing, poetry and meditation. We will sing songs from across the devotional landscape, and bask in the joy, love and community of being together in a heart space. 
This month’s theme is "Equinox: Death and Rebirth"!
This monthly event is specifically intended as a way to come together with our hearts. As we share in this way, we stabilize and grow our love in these times of greater concerns.

Bring your instruments, songs, poems and heartfelt expressions as you feel inspired, or just come and follow along. This is a sacred space event, facilitated to hold a deep and loving space for us to share.

Socializing will be before and after the event.

Bring snacks or drinks to share, firewood for the fire and cushions/blankets to sit on.

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:
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

evening talk
with Carolyn Baker, PhD
March 25th 7:00 to 9:30pm
Center for the Arts, 6780 Depot Street, Sebastopol
$15 ($5 if you sign up for her workshop on the 26th)

As we awaken to the convergence of crises in which we live and will be living for many years, the most challenging and sometimes painful issue for people is not how to learn to grow gardens, store food, or re-skill for the future, but rather a very personal one regarding communicating with their loved ones about the future they envision. In this introductory talk, Carolyn will lay out some of the pertinent issues and some helpful tools for how to approach this charged and emotional area of our life.
She draws from her extensive experience coaching people on this issue and is also available for private sessions.

For more info on Carolyn, go to:
<http://carolynbaker.net/2011/01/05/relationships-in-the-long-emergency/>

email Julia at julfire@yahoo.com for more info

West County Community Seed Bank meets monthly on the last Saturday of the month 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.
 

A day-long workshop with Carolyn Baker, Ph.D., author of Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization’s Collapse and the newly released Navigating the Chaos, exploring the great unraveling of civilization, what it means in our lives and how to best navigate it.

In this workshop we will explore:
The power of myth, story, drumming, and ritual to move us beyond the head & hand aspects of Transition to the deeper story it calls us to enter.
Moments of community which erupt out of collective opening to the evolutionary threshold which lies at the core of Transition.
Who we truly want to be in the face of a collapsing fossil fuel-based civilization and what this collapse may be calling us to do.
An opportunity to begin the journey of emotional and spiritual preparation for Transition, the Great Turning and the next culture beyond industrial civilization.
 
In this workshop, we will descend into the territory of the soul where the deeper story of transition may be lived and utilized to give the gifts that the earth is now asking for.

Dear Transition Sebastopol Movie Stalwarts, 

Unfortunately fortune conspired against us this time. From family illness to changes in all kinds of things, the movie techies out of town, and a controversial movie title, we have had to bow to the fates and cancel the Wednesday 3/30 movie. Apologies.

When: Saturday, April 9th, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Where: Meet at St Stevens Church, 500 Robinson Way, Sebastopol, CA 95472

Theme of the Month: Water

This Saturday we will focus on Water… Where does it come from, and where does it go when it leaves our homes? Learn how to read your bill, check for leaks and optimize your water use. Find out when you should filter your water, and whether you should rethink your water use. You will learn and see rainwater harvesting and easy water catchment systems. Discover the simplicity of passive rainwater catchment, drip irrigation, & aquaponics. What is the best way to do our dishes, take our showers and/or store our water for emergencies? How much water should we be drinking, what types of purifiers are best, and what safeguards should we support that will protect and secure our water supply.? These things and more will be covered this session.

We will begin our day meeting at St Stevens’s parish hall at 8:30am. From there we will carpool over to the Llano Road Water Treatment Plant at 8:45am sharp. We will meet Denise Cadman there and she will give us a tour of the plant and present an overview about water. Afterward we will come back to St Stevens and meet Kerry Pollard from the Sonoma County Water Agency. She will also present an overview on water, walk the property, assess the irrigation system, check and test the toilets, as well as the entire system for leaks. She will cover practical applications for conservation of water.

Lunch is a potluck. If you don’t have time or money to prepare something, don’t worry about it. There will be plenty.

After lunch we will check in, make sure we have all been introduced, talk about the program process and also address water. At 2:20 we will head over to Erik Ohlsen’s home and walk through the comprehensive water systems he has installed, while he discusses each one. At 4:00 we will head back to St Stevens for some review, wrap up our day, and discuss the homework for the next module; Waste.

with Trathen Heckman, TransitionUS
and Julia Bystrova, Transition Heart and Soul

How do we look fully into the face of what is going on in the world while staying grounded and centered and finding some peace?

How do we accept these difficult concerns and yet stay in our hearts and choose effective action?

How do we know what is the right direction for us to go, where to invest our time and energy?

How do we live our lives in such a way that it is filled with meaning, purpose and joy in such uncertain times?

More than ever, we need to find and strengthen our inner resources and have effective ways of responding when fear and confusion show up.

This Sunday afternoon workshop will explore these questions and offer some of the most effective techniques, practices and tools for achieving greater inner resiliency, clarity and peace of mind/heart.

Additionally, some of the subjects covered in this series will be:

• Spiritual Emergency: Finding deeper meaning when everything is falling apart
• Voluntary Simplicity: Getting your life back for that which is most important to you
• Emerging Consciousness: What is this “awakening” everyone keeps talking about?
• The Age of Responsibility: How we are growing up as a society and why we need to.
• Personal Ecology: The landscape of your life and how to effectively utilize your gifts

Sunday April 10th 12-5pm $30 suggested donation
Sebastopol (location given when you register)
Call 707-321-0644 or email to julfire@yahoo.com to register

This class is part of an ongoing series named the Emergence Preparedness Trainings
Next class will be on June 25th.