NWEI Conference Wrap-Up:
The Conversations Continue
Salutations from Port Townsend, a community that is still reverberating with the excitement of hosting NWEI’s biannual North American gathering last month (Sept. 15-18, 2011).
The “Will Allen buzz” has yet to wear off, and every one of the 500-odd people who attended his public keynote address seems to still be talking about it. Everyone else in town is eagerly awaiting the video that was shot that night to be edited and released.
Port Townsend’s grassroots efforts to create a more vibrant and sustainable local food economy have gained visibility and been bolstered by the opportunity to host “If Not Me, Then Who? Building Healthy Communities and Local Food Systems One Conversation at a Time.” (Thanks to NWEI for offering reasonable day rates that made it possible for many locals to attend the conference part-time.)
In addition to the conversations that start, “Did you hear Will Allen?”, conversations here in Port Townsend are spinning off everywhere:
- Through new NWEI discussion courses that are starting up this month, in homes and churches;
- At a talk this week on reconnecting urban consumers to agricultural producers, presented by the director of our state Department of Agriculture and hosted by Port Townsend’s Citizens for Local Food;
- At this week’s kick-off event for Our Watershed, a NWEI-style, 7-week course being offered at no charge to participants, and available in two geographic versions: the Pacific Northwest and more specifically Puget Sound. Learn more.
- At meet-the-candidate events with conference attendee and local economy advocate Deborah Stinson, who is running for City Council;
- Between my 3-year-old son and the 4-year-old son of a climate researcher I met at the conference whose family just happens to live four blocks from mine!
Best yet, our local Chamber of Commerce has invited me and Judy Alexander (chair of Port Townsend’s NWEI steering committee and Local 2020 leader) link to present back-to-back in November, and is dedicating two of its weekly meetings to the topic of local sustainability. The Chamber director was inspired by local media coverage of the NWEI conference, and her phone message was waiting for me at the end of the day Friday. What a wonderful and direct outcome!
Before my inspiration from the conference is redirected to these worthy conversations, I want to present some easily scannable conference highlights from sessions I attended. Below, please find short summaries and relevant links to more information. The conference schedule, contains details on all the presentations held Thursday-Sunday at Fort Worden State Park.
THURSDAY
Singing In the Great Turning
The introductory musical program was presented by Gretchen Sleicher, a singer/songleader who lives at the Port Townsend EcoVillage and leads workshops around the region that combine group singing and Joanna Macy’s The Work That Reconnects. She explained the Great Turning as the shift currently underway to a more life-sustaining society and soon had us singing simple but moving songs that illustrated the concepts. Read my blog post on this opening program.
FRIDAY
Community Building, Sustainable Food and Neighborhood Activism: A Port Townsend NWEI Case Study
Imagine if every Menu for the Future course had a farmer or food producer at the table? That was the case for the 28 NWEI discussion courses organized in our county in 2010. Judy Alexander and Peter Bates (both NWEI organizers) and local Grange President Dick Bergeron shared how they found common ground to pull off this ambitious, and how it helped grow the customer base for local food.
It was an inspiring first session, notable for its outcomes (our county now spends 4% of its food dollars locally, compared with less than 1% nationwide, and there is a push to get that to 20% by 2020), its specificity (how a Google Docs spreadsheet enabled course coordination), and its enduring themes (partnerships, identity politics, how food brings people together).
Peak Moment TV interviewed these three in Fall 2010, and the interviewer’s notes nicely summarize this Town Mouse/Country Mouse collaboration. Click here to read them, and click here to watch the 28-minute video.
Accelerating Community Capital: Developing a Local Investing Ecosystem
I heard this called “the most paradigm-shifting session” of the weekend, and with the Occupy Wall Street protests now in full swing, learning how to promote local investing seems more relevant than ever.
One of the key factors driving Port Townsend’s relatively thriving local economy is the Local Investing Opportunities Network (LION), a clearinghouse between business owners who need capital and potential investors in their community. It’s not a pooled investment or a loan fund, and business owners are not making public offerings—transactions are based on one-to-one personal relationships (which gets around SEC restrictions). Since LION formed in 2006 (it was formalized in 2008), it has facilitated more than $2 million in local investments—primarily loans—with an average investment of $132,000 per active investor.
“It has been not only a huge economic boost for us, but also a profoundly hopeful thing to be a part of,” said presenter Deborah Stinson. She was joined by fellow LION investor Michelle Sandoval and locally financed business owner Crystie Kisler of Finnriver Farm. “What we’re finding with LION investors is they have truly aligned their values with their actions and their bank accounts,” said Kisler.
LION’s website offers Local Investing Kits with templates of its legal agreements and forms. Peak Moment TV interviewed LION’s co-founder, an investor, and a locally financed entrepreneur in Summer 2011. Click here to watch the 28-minute video.
Becoming a Hyper-Locavore: Lessons from a 10-Mile Diet
I hadn’t read my conference schedule close enough to realize Vicki Robin would be here, and when I was casually introduced to the co-author of Your Money or Your Life—one of the most influential books of my past year—I couldn’t even speak, I just genuflected. So of course I had to attend Vicki’s presentation later that day.
Who knew it would be so funny? It turned out to be the trial run of her “relational eating” talk, describing her extreme eco-challenge to eat only what grew within 10 miles of her Whidbey Island home for one month in 2010—and she had us all laughing hysterically. Thankfully, she chose September. Thankfully her neighbors bootleg raw milk and cheese, and sell eggs and freerange chickens. But at a “shocking” $5/lb for those chickens, Vicki was forced to cut way back on eating the only meat available to her. In the midst of describing this protein dilemma to us, Vicki happened to look out the window and caught one of Port Townsend’s feral deer in her sights. Instantly, she leaped into a bow-and-arrow stance. “That would’ve been dinner,” she declared, to her audience’s great delight.
Look for her undoubtedly good-humored book to come out next year: Blessing the Hands that Feed Us: Lessons from a 10-Mile Diet (Viking 2012). Vicki blogs at ymoyl.wordpress.com.
The Practice of Homecoming: Harnessing the Power of Place to Build More Resilient Lives and Communities.
Friday’s keynote address was given by Kurt Hoelting, author of Circumference of Home: One Man’s Yearlong Quest for a Radically Local Life. Kurt graciously agreed to share his publishing story with me over lunch on Friday, and for a writer like me, that alone was worth my conference fee! I just finished reading his book, a finely crafted travelogue of the most unusual kind. I highly recommend it. Read my blog post on Kurt’s keynote address.
SATURDAY
Creating a Healthy, Wealthy and Wise Community through Walkability
This overview of our nation’s car-oriented transportation choices made the case for how improving walkability is a silver bullet and a “cheap fix” for meeting the myriad goals of personal and planetary health, personal and public wealth, personal satisfaction, and a more connected community.
Local resident Scott Walker (yes, that’s really his name!) is the chair of Port Townsend’s Non-Motorized Transportation Advisory Board and one of the reasons we have such a wonderful network of trails in city rights-of-way linking unconnected streets and neighborhoods. His presentation linked U.S. statistics on rising obesity rates, traffic-related deaths of children, and off-street parking requirements to the decline of American health and culture. It was a sobering call to action, tempered by the good news that the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute recently relocated its headquarters to Port Townsend, bringing Dan Burden and considerable resources with it.
“How did you get here?” Scott asked each of us at the start of his session. I was proud to answer “on bicycle.” Others had walked. Most had driven. “None of you mentioned walking,” he pointed out after everyone had spoken. “Every trip begins and ends with a walk.” Well worth remembering.
Tour of Port Townsend Farmer’s Market
We made the 1.5-mile trip on foot, on bicycle, or in carpools, working up an appetite for lunch from one of the many food vendors and produce growers. This is where Will Allen demonstrated that Milwaukeeans eat their brats with mayonnaise!
Good Food Revolution: The Power of Community Agriculture
The conference headliner was Will Allen, CEO of Growing Power, a farm and community food center in Milwaukee. His public presentation to an enthusiastic audience of more than 500 showcased the true heroes in the Good Food Revolution: worms. Yes, worms. Read my blog post on his inspirational speech.
SUNDAY
Too early in the morning, Deb McNamara (our intrepid conference organizer) added the cherry atop our overfull brains: a sneak preview of the new NWEI food course called Hungry for Change. Following small-group discussions of two sample readings, Deb rallied us to commit to concrete, achievable action items inspired by our conference experiences. We shared them with a partner, then called them out during the closing Elm Dance.
For my action item, I am seeking an online ride-share service for one-time trips and event carpools (to replace the pen-and-paper ride board at the Port Townsend Food Co-op), and will help promote it to gain wide local use and acceptance. Once conference attendee suggested icarpool.com. I’m still looking—any favorite sites out there you can share with me?
Our county’s annual Farm Tour was conveniently scheduled for this day, so amidst hugs and encouragements, the carpools departed Fort Worden for (literally!) greener pastures.
As it was impossible to attend all the sessions, if you want to add your feedback on any I missed, please leave a comment with your take-aways.
I’ll conclude with a telling comment from Sarah Heath, a 20-something conference attendee from Portland’s Planet Repair Institute: “I had no idea Port Townsend was such a beacon city,” she told me. What do you mean? I pressed. “You know, showing the way,” she said. Heck, I’m ready to paint that slogan on the city’s welcome sign!
So just follow the shining light, and y’all are welcome back to Port Townsend anytime.
This is the fourth and final post in my role as Guest Blogger for the conference, and it will be cross-posted on NWEI’s EarthMatters blog. Enjoy!
Related Posts
-
Bringing Down the Dams—and Capitalism?
Posted on Mar 16, 2012
-
‘Get to Know Your Neighbors’
Posted on Mar 14, 2012
-
Affordable Local Food…But How?
Posted on Feb 9, 2012
-
Resolve to Be “Curious, Doubtful” in 2012
Posted on Dec 30, 2011
Tags
Share This
