Weekly E-mail Update 2-12-17
Thank you for the wonderful feedback we received from our first email blast. We are grateful to be able to help connect Windham County people, groups, and organizations to one another. In addition, we're excited to announce the date for our Windham County Action Fair. We hope you'll be able to join us!
Weekly Events February 12th-19th, 2017
Parenting for Social Justice Chat
**STILL ON DESPITE SNOW**
Sunday February 12th, at the Putney Public Library (55 Main St, Putney, VT 05346). 10am-12noon.
This chat will focus on supporting each other and our children in social justice learning and action as we navigate the charged and challenging political climate of the new administration. Racial justice will be a topic of focus.
(We will have one more chat at the Putney Library - on March 19th. A new series begins at the Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro from 6-8pm on March 8th, April 12th, and May 10th.)
This project is a collaboration between The Putney Public Library and ACT for Social Justice. Light refreshments. Childcare is provided for kids ages 3 and up. Please RSVP to reserve a spot for your kids. For more information or to RSVP email [email protected] or call 802.254.3400.
Facebook Event
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Communication and Technology Safety Workshop
**STILL ON DESPITE SNOW -- THERE WILL BE A FOLLOW-UP FOR THOSE WHO CAN'T MAKE IT**
Sunday Feb 12, 2017 at the Winston Prouty Campus (Austine Drive, Brattleboro, VT, 05301). 2pm-4pm. Holton Hall, 4th floor.
If you use Facebook to connect with friends, use Google to do research or use text messages to make plans with family members your personal information and private communications are being collected, collated, sold, and searched. Our trainer has spent 25 years researching how it's done and how to protect against it. Topics he used to think were just for nerds and threats that were purely theoretical are now real and relevant to everyone. Folks can feel free to bring laptops or just a notebook and their curiosity. Come, listen, and ask questions. We'll be meeting on the 4th floor of Holton Hall which is the tallest building on the Winston Prouty (formerly Austine) Campus.
Facebook Event
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Mindful Monday Movie Night
Screening of INHABIT: A Permaculture Perspective
hosted by Edible Brattleboro
Monday, February 11, 2017 at the Brattleboro Food Co-op (2 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301). 5:45pm-8pm. Community Room, entrance on Canal Street.
INHABIT explores the many environmental and agricultural issues facing us today and examines solutions that are being applied using the ecological design process called permaculture, which uses the principles found in ecosystems to help shift our impact from destructive to regenerative. Focused mostly on the Northeastern and Midwestern regions of the US, INHABIT provides an intimate look at permaculture peoples and practices across the rural, suburban and urban landscapes. For those familiar, it will be a call to action and a glimpse into what's possible - what kind of projects and solutions are already underway. For those unfamiliar, it will be an introduction to a new way of being and a new way of relating to the Earth. For everyone, it will be a reminder that humans are capable of being planetary healing forces.
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Black Lives Matter VT-South Meeting
Monday, February 13th at The Root Social Justice Center (Whetstone Studio for the Arts, 28 Williams St. Brattleboro, VT, 05301). 6pm-8pm. 1st Floor.
Email [email protected] to arrange for childcare in advance. The Root is an accessible and fragrance free space. Read here for more info on what that means. We are working on being able to provide translation and interpretation at our meetings. Please contact us if you have this need or are able to provide these services. Our meeting will have a People of Color only caucus and political education component. Please come and bring your friends! All are welcome.
Facebook Event
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Local Love Brigade Postcard Making
presented by the Local Love Brigade and The Dianich Gallery
Tuesday, February 14th (Valentine’s Day!) at The Dianich Gallery (139 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05031) 11am - 1pm.
and
Friday, February 17th at The Dianich Gallery (139 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301). 3pm - 5pm.
We will be making postcards every Friday in February! Please watch the WeCAN Weekly Email Updates for times and locations.
Be Part of the Local Love Brigade. Come by The Dianich Gallery and make postcards to send out in an avalanche of love to support victims of hate. You'll be part of a movement that has begun to illuminate the power of fierce love. The public is welcome, and children, of course, are welcome. The Dianich Gallery is located in the Hooker Dunham Building, 139 Main Street, down the alley and though the glass doors.
To find out more and see the heartfelt messages of support that local folks are sending out into the world, join the Local Love Brigade - Vermont Facebook Group .
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Email Deadline February 14, 2017:
OPERATION BIRDDOG for HEALTH CARE : Training to Advocate for Healthcare
**For the training to happen, we need 15-20 people to commit to coming by Tuesday, February, 14th. E-mail Becky Karush at [email protected] if you're interested! **
What is birddogging? "To bird-dog" means "to follow, watch carefully, or investigate." When used in a political context, the term refers to activists who seek out the candidates, pin them down with specific questions or information, and retrieve their views.
Between February 19th-February 21st, 2017 national trainers will come to the Keene/Brattleboro area to help small groups learn skills that will help you DEMAND that senators craft health policy that (among other things) covers more people, decreases out of pocket expenses, and does not discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.
You will learn how to find out about town hall events around the region, how to make sure you get good seats and get called on, how to share your story, how to get the crowd on your side, how to get a handshake and press coverage!
You will also plug into an expanding network of health care advocates—not just defending the Affordable Care Act but winning improvements: access that costs less, covers more people, and includes affordable medication for everyone, everywhere.
After this organizing meeting, you can choose to get notifications of upcoming opportunities for action near you, and connect you with allies, and help put together plans for action.
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Freedom Cafe with Everett Company: Performance and Conversation on Mass Incarceration
Presented by Vermont Performance Lab in association with Marlboro College.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017 at 118 Elliot (118 Elliot Street, Brattleboro, VT, 05301). 7pm-8:30pm. Free.
The FREEDOM PROJECT is the Everett Company’s newest dance-theater work that interweaves personal stories, evocative imagery, and athletic choreography in an examination of mass incarceration in America.
Join us at the Freedom Café for an evening of dance and discussion which will include excerpts from the Everett Company’s new work alongside a community discussion with folks from the Greater Bellows Falls Community Justice Center, The Just Schools Project and Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform.
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Protest Vigils at TD Bank
Sponsored by Post Oil Solutions
Brattleboro
Friday, February 17, 2017 (and every Friday) in front of TD Bank Brattleboro (215 Main St, Brattleboro, VT 05301). Noon-1pm. Signs will be provided.
Bellows Falls
Friday, February 17, 2017 (and every Friday) in front of the TD Bank Bellows Falls (2 Church St, Bellows Falls, VT 05101). 1pm-2pm. Please bring your own signs.
TD is a major investor in Tar Sands. TD helps to fund the Dakota Access Pipeline. The State of Vermont Keeps Most of Our Cash in TD.
What You Can You Do (besides attending the vigils):
· If you’re a TD depositor, change banks!
· If you’re a Vermonter, demand that state funds not be deposited with a bank investing in fossil fuels.
Contact your state legislators to support the bills in the House & Senate calling for a commission to explore the possibility of a State Bank.
Founded in 2005, Post Oil Solutions is a 501c3 community organizing project in Southeastern Vermont whose mission is to help empower the people of the Central Connecticut River Valley bioregion to develop sustainable, resilient , collaborative, and socially just communities leading to a self- and community-sufficient post petroleum society. For more information please contact [email protected] or call 802.869.2141.
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Human Rights Café in Saxtons River: Human Rights in Guatemala
Saturday, February 18, 2017 (and every Saturday) at Christ’s Church (24 Main Street, Saxton’s River, Vermont). 9am-11am. In the dining room.
Together, we create a safe and inspiring space to share human rights concerns and information—and to plan solutions and actions. The Cafe is open everySaturday morning from 9am – 11am in the dining room at Christ’s Church, 24 Main St., Saxtons River. Contact Susan Still at [email protected] for information.
This Saturday, Laila Hamdan will describe her experience as a human rights accompanier with NISGUA’s Guatemala Accompaniment Project. NISGUA is the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala. During her six months in Guatemala, Laila and other colleagues were requested to be present with communities who were seeking to regain their rights to the lands they and their families had fled during the conflicts of the 1980s. In addition, she supported the ongoing work of the survivors and witnesses to the genocidal violence who are bringing its perpetrators to trial for their crimes.
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Progressive Party Quarterly Meeting
Sunday, Feb 19th, 2017 at the Edmunds Elementary School (229 Main Street, Burlington, VT). 1pm-4 pm.
All are welcome, but only members vote. Call Spoon Agave at (802) 254-0533to share ride.
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FUTURE UPCOMING EVENTS:
Brattleboro Select Board Candidate Forum
Thursday, February 23rd, 2017 at the Municipal Center (230 Main St, Brattleboro, VT 05301, United States). 6PM-8PM. The Select Board Meeting Room.
Get to know your select board candidates and let them know what's important to you! The public is invited to join grassroots co-sponsors 350 Brattleboro, Brattleboro Community TV (media sponsor), Post Oil Solutions,Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity, Vermont Workers' Centerand Rights & Democracy VT (other co-sponsors pending). Each co-sponsor will submit 1-2 questions and each candidate will have 2 minutes to answer those questions. Members of the public may also submit questions during the forum, which will be broadcast live on BCTV.
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Climate Change Café: A Community of Concerned Citizens
featuring the Heartful Conversations meeting format. A project of Post Oil Solutions.
Tuesday, February 28th, 2017 at the Brooks Memorial Library (224 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT 05301). 6:00pm. Free, light refreshments available.
Through the localization movement a better world is not only possible; it’s within our reach. This world begins with people talking and listening to each other. When we have authentic, respectful conversations we strengthen our relationships and advance our understanding of the challenges, opportunities, and solutions before us.
Using a format called ‘Heartful Conversations’ Wendy Webber will facilitate a process that has the potential to support connection, to reach across differing perspectives, and inspire something new to emerge. At the end of the evening we will be looking to participants to explore with us if and how this kind of format may be used in an ongoing way to further the intention to bring community, meaning, and purpose to our lives.
For further information call 802.869.2141 or email [email protected].
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Gallery Walk Pop-Up Exhibit to Depict January 21st Women's March
Friday, March 3rd, 2017. Peter Havens Restaurant (32 Elliot St, Brattleboro, VT 05301). 4pm. Free.
Peter Havens Restaurant is sponsoring a community interactive photographic exhibit by Brattleboro Area residents who participated in the January 21st Women's Marches. ANYONE may participate. Please bring a favorite photo or two (any size, any paper) of your “March” to donate to this exhibit, and 2 clothespins per photo. Most of the photos will be displayed on wire lines. Attach a short synopsis of your experience (optional). This exhibit will be hung in Peter Havens’ newest addition to the restaurant at 32 Elliott Street in Brattleboro. The future use of this open space is to accommodate private parties at Peter Havens and to house Jasmine’s Cakes.
On March 3rd, we’ll open the door at 4pm to welcome participants and to assist with hanging photographs under designated geographic headings: Brattleboro, Montpelier, Washington, D.C., Greenfield and Boston, MA, etc. Collages, signs, posters and pink hats are also welcome! The exhibit will be taken down on Saturday, March 4th; you may stop in between 1:30-3:30 to retrieve any items you want returned.
Come and meet others who may be interested in taking future action, share ideas on how to move forward, and learn about what is already planned locally and nationally. Please stop by to participate or just to view the exhibit. Thank you in advance!
Call Ro (802) 380-0284, Priscilla (802) 505-8925 or Louise (802) 258-8874 for more information.
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Once again, thank you so much for your commitment to our community and we look forward to seeing you at an event in the near future!
In Solidarity,
Your Friendly WeCAN Admins
Ann and Joanna
http://www.wecantogether.net/
P.S. If you would like to submit an event to be included in the weekly email blast, please email [email protected] by Friday at 10pm and include "Weekly Email Blast +Your Event Date" in the subject line (for example: "Weekly Email Blast 2/19/17"). Until we get our calendar up and running, we ask that all organizations please send us events on a weekly basis and not in advance. We are working on the ability to track ongoing events, but aren't quite there yet! Thank you for your cooperation and don't hesitate to email WeCAN with any questions.