Willits Economic Localization

From CFI

Introduction and Purpose

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Tools, Background and Perspectives

• WELL Newsletter WELL NEWSLETTER - FEBRUARY 8, 2006

CALENDAR

Friday, February 10 7pm WELL Film Series: "Jamie's School Dinner - Part 2" British TV Chef Jamie Oliver embarks on a campaign to bring healthy menus to Britain's Schoolchildren. Jamie goes into London schools to introduce fresh, natural, nutritious and delicious food to students who are accustomed to eating over-processed junk food. Showing at the Willits Public Library, E. Commercial Street Donation requested

Monday, February 13 evening presentation by Hal Wagenet Join Supervisor Wagenet at the Willits Community Center, as he shares his plans for a new housing development in Willits - he is interested in feedback from WELL participants and the community at large. More information available from Hal: 459.0700.

Monday, February 20 - Special Meeting: "The Future of WELL" 6:30 - 8:30pm Community Center

During our regular meeting time this month we will begin to explore our last year of work together in preparation for a full weekend workshop (see listing for March 4 & 5). This is an opportunity for anyone and everyone who has been a part of WELL, is just learning about WELL or is a community member, to give input into what will happen during our upcoming workshop. This workshop is being designed to solicit input about what our community would like to see happen in our valley and through WELL. Please come give us your ideas and feedback. Everyone is welcome.

March 4 & 5 - Workshop: "The Future of WELL" Times and place to be announced - The workshop will be a full two days - a detailed agenda will be available prior to the weekend.

This workshop will have three parts:

  1.  review of what we've accomplished, what's working, what's not, organizational structure
  2.  visioning of what we'd like to create in our community based on core values - 
      including a long term vision and a succinct vision statement
  3.  strategic plan  for our next year of work, to include fundraising plan, outreach 
      plan, organizational structure and key projects. 

The full proposal for this workshop is attached in a MS Word document. This page also includes ways for you to give feedback. This sheet is available at the REDI/WELL office and will be at the door of WELL events.

This workshop will be dynamic and will give us critical information in order to move forward together in our work.

Monday, March 6 - Speaker Event: Panel Discussion with Local Health Practitioners 6:30 - 8:30pm Willits Community Center

FINDING HEALTH IN THESE CHANGING TIMES A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT HEALTH, WELLNESS AND WHOLENESS

Join us on Monday, March 6th at 6:30 pm to explore the expectations we have about our health care and how we can develop a whole new way to approach healing.

How would it be for you to have the support of a connected group of health care practitioners, say, a medical doctor, nutritionist, herbalist, counselor, bodyworker, acupuncturist - to address your unique health care needs? These caring people would take the time to listen to you and help you find the ways to improve your health.

How might we set up a new kind of healing center where you would receive education and empowerment to really heal your whole life?

How would we make this support affordable for everyone in our community?

What are the obstacles and advantages to such a health care style?

Bring your questions and visions.

The following practitioners include a medical doctor, physician’s assistant, counselors, chiropractor, naturopathic doctor, acupuncturists and herbalists and will be on a panel to discuss this very subject:

Kate Black Kristin Bradford Melinda Clarke Donnalee Hart Paula Murphy Prophessor Ping Pong Wolfgang Ronnefeldt Diane Smalley March 17 & 18 - Special Workshop: Richard Register and Kristin Miller of Eco City Builders Times and places to be announced

Richard is world-renowned for his innovative work in creating walkable, bikable, livable cities. Don't miss this evening event and full day workshop, co-sponsored by the City of Willits and in conjunction with REDI, WAG and NCO. Details will be coming.

Monday, March 20 - General Meeting of the Working Groups 6:30 - 8:30pm Willits Community Center

Join us for our monthly meeting of our working groups and get involved with their projects.

Special Event Coming in April:

THIS IS RLNC — "OUR LINK" TO SUSTAINABILITY

Calling all Economic Localization groups in Northern California to join together for a Regional Localization Networking Conference

An information exchange opportunity sponsored by the WELL

April 7-9, 2006 — Keynote Address by David Schaller - Sustainable Development Coordinator, US EPA

The purpose of this conference is to improve our region’s economic localization efforts through sharing best practices; developing consistent messages for the general public, business community, and political leaders; and enhancing regional communication between groups. The goal for this conference is not to raise the general awareness of the issue of economic localization, but rather to share ideas among those who are presently encouraging this transition in their communities. An application for locals who would like to attend this event is forthcoming.

PAST EVENTS

On January 25, the Willits city council voted to take the next steps towards making the city a leader in the solar world! This vote was the result of over a year of hard volunteer work, itself a collaboration between the WELL Energy Group, the City's Ad Hoc Energy Group, headed by Council member Ron Orenstein, and the Renewable Energy Development Institute (REDI). All of this effort helped convince the city to go renewable, using solar to offset its major operations. A Request for Proposal, an application for rebate from the new California Solar Initiative, and contract money to hire a consultant for the project were all approved by a unanimous vote.

Many thanks to Ron and the dedicated volunteers of the groups mentioned above.

A full article from "The Willits News" regarding this landmark decision at: http://www.willitsnews.com/Stories/0,1413,253%257E26908%257E3216981,00.html

Willits Chamber of Commerce becomes a BALLE partner, planning a "Buy Local" Campaign Once again, Willits is a leader, as this quote from the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies - BALLE newsletter illustrates: "Good news! Our first Chamber of Commerce has signed up! The path-breakers are in the small rural town of Willits, California, about halfway between San Francisco and the Oregon border."

See the BALLE website for more about this new localization partner and their work, which is now part of our work and vice versa. http://www.livingeconomies.org/

The February 8 edition of the "Willits News" has an article on this alliance: http://www.willitsnews.com/Stories/0,1413,253%257E27830%257E3230561,00.html

Brian's Birthday Party: Well, we had a great party on the 21st. January. We estimated that over 200 people came and we raised $2200 including the raffle. After expenses that gave us $1600 to split between WELL and The Grange. There was an abundance of pot luck food and drinks from our guests and 2 cases of wine were generously donated from Jonathan Frey of Frey Vineyards. Also Bob Doty, the manager of Mendo Mill gave us a large roll of black plastic to decorate the stage.

David Goulds' band, Sweet Spot were awesome! The lighting rig was just right and our thanks go to Robin and Jamie Krauss for their perfect set up. Thanks also to all the volunteers who helped decorate the hall, worked at reception, in the kitchen and cleared up including Richard, Janet, Freddie, Madge, Jan Stephens, Cindy Logan and Annie, also Karina for the loan of Xmas lights. If I've missed anyone, please forgive me.

Special thanks go to Erica, Ellie and Stephanie of The Grange who worked so hard and gave their full support as we radically transformed the hall into a rock 'n' roll venue.

Lastly my thanks to Hal Wagenet and Richard Lang of Sebastopol for their songs. And thanks to all of you for making the night so special and fun!

Mendo County Localization Panel: This Monday night about 90 folks joined panelists from CELL, WELL, GULP, AVFSP and SL to hear about Economic Localization happening all around the county. It was notable to see how differently each community has responded, targeting their efforts to the make-up of each community, from Laytonville and Anderson Valley, both high in natural capital and homesteading skills, to Ukiah, higher in social capital and cultural events.

Highlights: Lanny Cotler was both entertaining and encouraging as our timely MC.

Christiana Heckeroth of CELL shared a long list of accomplishments, including extensive outreach with schools on the coast, a dedicated Steering Committee and ongoing educational events.

Sustainable Laytonville (SL) is an action oriented group that owns a herd of yaks - animals with an incredible versatility of use, according to Alison Pernel. SL has held workshops on food preservation, is involved with connecting people around skills - those who have them with those that want to practice - and small neighborhood networking.

WELL is celebrating more than a year of active meetings and dedicated research. Annie Weller reported how pleased we are with our inventory. She emphasized our focus on shared values which underlie the vision. The Inventory both tells us how far we have to go towards our vision, and what strengths or assets we have to use. Annie contrasted how WELL has done several easy projects with the bigger, long-term plans that are in motion. The small successes help us develop relationships and expertise that we can build upon towards actions that create our greater vision.

Sarah McCament of the Anderson Valley Foodshed Project (AVFSP) shared their vision of a broad food system for the AV. This year they have worked with several local food service groups, including the farmers market and local grocery stores, to bring local food to residents. In October they developed the "Come Home to Eat" project, hosting events featuring local foods. Through their encouragement, a local farmer has rehabilitated an old combine and is growing winter grains.

GULP, the Greater Ukiah Localization Project is just gearing up, although they showed "The End of Suburbia" around the same time it was shown in Willits. Since then, a core of committed folks, including panelist Cliff Paulin have been meeting in preparation to plan an organization that will work in the more urban Ukiah environment. Please send your Ukiah friends to GULP meetings! They recently held a panel event in the Ukiah Council Chambers and had a good turnout and encouragement from many local government officials.

Sumo Burnstad reported from the Cloud Forest Institute about the work that they have long done in our county in educating about environmentalism and peak oil.

There were several great questions and comments from the audience and a few guest speakers, one of whom commented on the work WELL has done in reaching out to our entire community, a group historically split by political and environmental passions.

The evening was inspiring, showing the depth and breadth of our work in Mendocino County. Many thanks to all of the volunteers who made this evening a success, and especially to the panelists and other speakers, many of whom drove long distances to share with us all.

Today's "Willits News" has a front page article on the evening. You can read it at: http://www.willitsnews.com/Stories/0,1413,253%257E26908%257E3230581,00.html

OTHER NEWS

Other community efforts This is a municipality's transportation committee's report titled: GLOBAL PEAK IN OIL PRODUCTION: THE MUNICIPAL CONTEXT

In it is a summary of the issue, the roles of government stakeholders, and a table of recommendations at the municipal level. Though it was not prepared for our region specifically, we have very similar governmental and build infrastructure.

http://burnaby.fileprosite.com/contentengine/document.asp?Print=yes&ID=9181& Direct=1

http://cascadiascorecard.typepad.com/blog/2006/01/editors_note_th.html

Staying in touch The WELL web master, Brian Corzilius is keeping track of localization projects around the world that have good resources available. See http://www.willitseconomiclocalization.org/OtherCommsLoc.htm

If any group has information that they want posted to a central place, where anyone can go to read about it they can email the info to Jenny Burnstad at jen@cloudforest.org and she will post it on the Cloud Forest Institute website: www.cloudforest.org

Opportunity for Gardeners The WELL food group has been offered the use of two potential garden sites:

1) The first is a large garden space a short distance up Sherwood Road, already fenced with water available. This might be an ideal spot for a group of people that live in Brooktrails.

2) The second space is a large backyard behind a house in downtown Willits. Some people have already committed to garden there and others to help double-dig, but we could use more.

We are hoping to find people who are serious about growing part of their food and who would commit themselves at least for a growing season.

For more information, contact Mary Zellachild at 459-3963 or maryzel@saber.net.

• Calendar of Community Events

• The Big Picture Why are we trying to create something different? Why not just watch the tele?

• Visioning The Localization Process Obviously we can't localize all at once, but we should set goals and timelines. And our goals should be those of "sufficiency" rather than "luxury," if we are going to create something lasting and secure. Here's some math...

• Sample Format For Questions And Answers From Study Group Researchers In order to effectively organize our research, a standard format is needed. Here's a sample that illustrates a proposed format.

• Essays Your thoughts and concerns to share?

• Business Opportunities What is missing from our town that we will need when globalization reverses?

• Steering Committee Minutes

• Archive Of Major Bulk Email From Jason

• Archive Of Willits News Stories

• Testing, Testing If you are shy about fiddling with existing pages, practice here!

Active Study Groups

• Food How to produce it here, how much land is needed, connecting producers to markets...

• Energy Fossil fuels, biofuels, conservation, sectors: heating, cooking, transport, local industry...

• Water Needed for food! Seasonality, catchment basin potential, storage infrastructure, ground water infrastructure, quality, energy needed to maintain and distribute...

• Shelter Improving current infrastructure, using local materials...

• Health Modern medicine, old-time techniques, our local medicines...

• Social Organization How is the population deployed over the landscape, what is the political and bureaucratic structure, what is the distribution of skills in the labor pool...

Pending or Suspended Study Groups

• Transportation Biking, walking, car sharing, public transport...

• Local Currency Barter versus currency systems, reasons for doing so, how to create, how to exchange with standard currency...

• Industry What equipment, tools and skills are needed and available locally to support, on an ongoing basis, our basic needs for food, water, energy and shelter?

• Education School gardening, supporting skilled trades, understanding how human economy depends upon natural processes...

• Outreach and Political Action Informing local leaders and the citizenry, public forums and topics of interest, e.g., new paths, proposed roads, Brooktrails forestry...

• Community Farm And Ecovillage Where might this happen, who's involved, how can it be done?