Tag Archive for 'abundance league'

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Denver, You’re Invited: Tue 10/14 6:30pm – Dan Brazelton + non-confrontational mediation

Published on October 9, 2008 in Denver Events by Taj Moore. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

DENVER—The Abundance League meets this coming Tuesday, October 14 at Leela European Café again (this time no hammer drilling!). I’m very excited to bring everyone together again, especially because this month…

…we have a special guest speaker joining us the wilds of Seattle, the Bering Sea, and San Francisco: Dan Brazelton has been a volunteer community mediator for over ten years with the Burning Man organization as a Black Rock City Ranger. If you have ever been inspired by examples of people and communities living out their vision and principles, the Rangers are a sterling example.

Dan will tell us about the Rangers, and how their community extends the ethos of extraordinary generosity and community that Burning Man creates into our everyday life. Hearing Dan’s stories about the Rangers has been an inspiration for me over the years and one of the things that led me to bringing the Abundance League here in Colorado. Below is a little background on the Rangers; you won’t want to miss this event!

BTW, I strongly suggest bringing a friend to your next Abundance League meeting, and here’s why: how many times have you found out something new about a close friend by hearing them tell a story to someone else? What do you suppose your friends could learn about you? Bring them this Tuesday and find out!

Each year Burning Man attracts nearly 50,000 in the temporary community of Black Rock City, Nevada. During it’s one week peak, it’s the fifth most populous city in the state. “Black Rock City stands at the intersection of several legal jurisdictions represented on the playa by the Pershing County Sheriffs Department, the Washoe County Sheriffs Department, Bureau of Land Management Law enforcement, Nevada State Highway Patrol, and other Nevada state agencies.”

“As a non-confrontational mediating agency, the Rangers help to resolve disputes within [the] community, but they also bridge the gap between the ethos and the culture of our citizens and the needs and responsibilities of law enforcement. As first responders, [they] are often able to effectively mediate disputes and interpret [the] city’s rules in ways that avoid larger and sometimes negative results which might ordinarily result in more negative consequences for the individuals or groups involved.”  —Rangers website

You can find the Rangers on the Web at http://rangers.burningman.com/who.shtml

Dan is also a mariner and filmmaker. You can learn more about Dan Brazelton here.

And as always, please come prepared to spend a couple minutes briefly telling everyone about a couple of your passions/projects, what you need to pursue them, and  any gifts you offer to support each other in leading inspired lives.

We start at 6:30 pm, and end around 9:30 pm, but you are always welcome to come and go at any time.

WHERE 
Leela European Café
820 15th St
Denver, CO 80202
(303) 534-2255
www.myspace.com/leelaeuropeancafe

AGENDA
6:30–7:00 pm — Mingle
7:00–7:45 pm — Member Announcements: Your Passions, Needs & Gifts
7:45–8:00 pm — Break, Eat, Mingle, Exchange Support
8:00–8:45 pm — Presentation & Discussion
8:45–9:30 pm — Eat, Mingle, Exchange Support, Clean Up, Clear Out

BRING 
– Yourself, friends! 
– Business cards, handouts, flyers 
– Share: books, CDs, DVDs or anything that you’d like to loan or gift at the meeting.

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San Francisco, You’re Invited: Thu 10/16 6pm – Clothing Swap Fundraiser

Published on September 25, 2008 in San Francisco Events by Neal Gorenflo. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

On Thursday October 16th from 6-10pm, Abundance League is hosting a clothing swap as a fundraiser for SoMa Creativity Center.

Bring a dish or drink, plus your favorite surplus hipster, vintage, or burning man fashion to swap. Music provided by whoever comes. Bring your laptop, iPod or CDs if you want to spin. Sound system provided.

Fashion Slave – which supports local designers, artists, and shop keepers – is sponsoring. Fashion Slave’s Kim Connector will be our fab hostess. She throws THE best clothing swaps and trunk shows swaps around.

Free your clothing…and clothe yourself for nearly free.  All the while supporting SoMa Creativity Center. $10 suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds.

WE”RE BACK AT SOMA CREATIVITY CENTER, YAY!

MEETING
What: The Abundance League
When: Thursday, Oct. 16th, 6:00-10:00pm
Where: The SOMA Creativity Center, 81 Langton Street, Suite 13, San Francisco, buzz yourself in

AGENDA                                                                                                                6:00 – 10:00 nonstop fashion swap, music, refreshments, and mingling.  Discuss you passion, needs and gifts while you mingle!  And you can type ‘em in the laptop.

Just in today (10/13), Swap Guidelines from Kim Connector.

What to bring:

  • Clothes, accessories or shoes and a bag to put your new goodies in
  • If you can’t remember the last time you wore it or it doesn’t fit, let it find a new happy home where it will be loved and used. Great chance to get rid of old Halloween Costumes.

What not to bring:

  • Stained, dirty, smelly, holey clothes or shoes
  • If you would not want your friend to be seen in it put it out on the street or cut it up for cleaning rags.
  • Sports Basement takes donations of old track shoes and crocs to send for recycling**

When you arrive:

  • Unpack your donations and sort into the piles with like articles (men’s shoes with men’s shoes, women’s shirts with women’s shirts… )
  • Let the searching begin, start going through all the stuff there and trying it on
  • Put articles that you are going to take in your take home bag and out of the main swap area, as not to be confused with available items.
  • Whatever is left over with be donated to Community Thrift.
  • The main thing to remember is that you take what you want and leave what you don’t.
  • Mingle and snack, have fun and encourage those around you. Sharing is nice! It is great to see and old favorite go to someone new who is excited to have it so enjoy, tell them a story about it.
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Join the Revolution?!

Published on September 24, 2008 in Abundance by Neal Gorenflo. 0 Comments Tags: , .

I reject limited ideas of self. My profile picture on Facebook is now a social graph. The social graph is me. Free yourself. Join the…revolution?!

The image is from the Abundance League social network survey done by Doris and Harald of FAS.research in 2006. If you took the survey and you want a picture to use for your profile, let me know. I’ll send you one.

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Friend-to-Friend Commerce (F2F)

Published on September 24, 2008 in Abundance by Neal Gorenflo. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

I was talking with Taj of the Denver Abundance League on Saturday about how we can make the league more meaningful on a day-to-day basis. Imagine what it would be like to experience the mutually-supportive environment we create at monthly meetings, but on a daily basis.

This lead me to the concept of Friend-to-Friend commerce. Instead of putting your stuff on Craigslist or eBay and selling to a stranger, why not sell to a friend? I mean think about it, most people never even let their friends know they’re selling something on a C2C site. That’s weird. Why not let your friends know first? Why not give them first dibs. Or even better, just give the item to a friend, someone that you love, trust, and want to help. And what if all your friends did the same thing? And what if listings went beyond stuff and included all kinds of support? F2F commerce might be a way to experience extraordinary generosity every day.

This idea may represent a gigantic cultural lacuna. There’s only one result that comes back from a google search on the exact term “friend-to-friend commerce” or the same without dashes. And that result is in reference to marijuana sales networks in the law enforcement domain. In a way, that shows the power of the corporate controlled marketplace – we do not see our friends as sources of material sustenance. We search vertically to get our needs met, not horizontally. That’s radically undemocratic. Conversely, Friend-to-Friend Commerce is radically democratic.

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Denver Meeting Notes: September 2008

Published on September 23, 2008 in Denver Events by Taj Moore. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

What a great meeting! I am always impressed with fruitful even a small gathering proves to be. This month’s meeting of the Abundance League took place last Wednesday at Leela European Café and focused on personal connections as we each discussed our passions & projects. Meeting notes follow…

Our next meeting is Tuesday, October 14th. Yes, Tuesday! We’re changing it up for October. Mark your calendars. We haven’t settled on a featured speaker, artist, or activity yet. Got an idea? Just reply and let us know.

I want to point out that abundance doesn’t just happen once a month when we get together. It’s something we practice every day through the connections we make and the extraordinary generosity we practice with each other. A lot of us continue the conversations between meetings and have real impact on each other’s lives. Let’s bring some of those stories back next month!

Taj (+Susan)

MEMBER ANNOUNCEMENTS

Taj
Passion: social networking. Working on the tAL website with Neal in San Francisco to create a richer environment that fosters community between meetings.
Gifts: marketing & social networking brainstorming, recent knowledge of messenger bags (if you’re in the market for one)

Leah
Passion: Project Greenleaf … learning + teaching about alternatives to industrial food economy & agriculture. Creating social change through urban agriculture w/ youth … wants to launch in two years. Buying a house soon, where she can pilot the agriculture practices in the back yard. Also starting a 2 yr master’s in sustainable business at Goddard.
Needs: consulting/advice to learn about the existing org landscape in Denver related to project … help creating an advisory board as well as members for the board (youth & adults). Urban homesteading knowledge. Also needs a power drill.
[Susan gave Leah some excellent contacts during the mingling … abundance in action!]
Gifts: knowledge and help making farmer’s cheese and preserves; community organizing help … helping people identify their strengths and use them; also can help stretch a canvas

Susan
Passion: Facilitating group dynamics/community building; the Living Laundromat project—bring people together in a public space … cultural events, meetings, holistic health, performances, café. Also passionate about organizing & facilitating retreats as a private practice … urban retreats that are more accessible in terms of time and travel … vacation retreats outside the country. Also loves gardening & dance.
Needs: to work smaller projects that approximate the Living Laundromat. Needs co-conspirators for retreats … board members for Living Laundromat, and experienced people to help plan logistics … and a space for the Laundromat.
Gifts: facilitating retreats (individual & group). Celery & collard greens from the garden. Introductory instruction in contact improvisation (dance).

Raul
Passion: to create a space for organizers to go to create leaders. Also, wants to create a film out of a trip to north Africa, the Middle East, the Silk Road, documenting the travels as well as “vision workshops” he holds with locals along the way.
Needs: good place/teachers to learn Arabic & Farsi; money for film project … fellowship, sponsors; to know more NGOs in the geographical areas of focus; three cameras for film … one a super 8.
Gifts: can teach Spanish; organization knowledge & experience to share; film editing; vision workshops

Leah & Raul
Have a joint vision for making a zombie movie! (It sounds profound, actually, so ask them about it.) They need to find people for makeup, costuming, set building, and miniature building.

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San Francisco, You’re Invited: Thu 9/18 6pm – Janet Carter from UNtraining + Abundance League Host Talk About Race

Published on September 12, 2008 in San Francisco Events by Neal Gorenflo. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

A discussion about race? As Pam, a fellow leaguer said, “how unsettling.” She later added this is why we should have the discussion. So let’s get unsettled out of patterns that may be keeping us from helping each other.

There’s arguably no better facilitator for this in the Bay Area than Janet Carter from UNtraining, an organization that works to undo white rascism. Here’s what to expect in Janet’s words:

“This year’s presidential election has brought the complex issue of race to the forefront of our collective awareness. Simplistic labels like “racist” and “non-racist” obscure the fact that all children who grow up in the United States are subject to cultural conditioning around race. This “training” is deeply personal, often unconscious, and subtly shapes the way we feel about ourselves and others.

Despite our basic goodness as human beings, we learn early our position in the social, political, and economic hierarchies we live in. If we are white, we can usually fit into the mainstream racial “norm.” Most of the time, whites don’t have to think about race. This invisible privilege can be an obstacle to connecting with others to create the social justice we all want to see. If we’re a person of color, we may bear the brunt of unconscious racism, even from well-meaning white friends and co-workers.

The UNtraining program is a compassionate and provocative approach to help white people investigate their racial conditioning in a white-normed culture. The principles and practices can be applied to any of the “isms” that separate us. This evening will be an opportunity for people of all colors to look at racism from a personal point of view and discuss how it affects our daily lives.”

As always, great care will be taken to create a safe and supportive place for discussion.

We hope to see you there for a great exchange. And come ready to talk about your passions, needs, and gifts during announcements so that we can help each other create the lives and communities of our dreams – right here in reality.

If you would like to be a volunteer facilitator of this meeting, just respond to this e-mail or volunteer at the meeting. Instructions for facilitating will be provided.

MEETING
What: The Abundance League
When: Thursday, Sept. 18th, 6:00-10:00pm (you can come and go anytime during the meeting)
Where: The SOMA Creativity Center, 81 Langton Street, Suite 13, San Francisco
Call 415.867.0429 if you have trouble finding the meeting. Learn more about the SOMA Creativity Center here: http://www.somacreativitycenter.org

AGENDA
6:00 – 6:30 – Mingle
6:30 – 7:15 – Member announcements (your passions, needs and gifts)
7:15 – 7:30 – Break – nosh, mingle, exchange support
7:30 – 8:30 – Presentation & discussion
8:30 – 10:00 Nosh, mingle, exchange support, clean up

Learn more about our meetings here:
http://www.theabundanceleague.org/2007/08/about- abundance-league-meetings.html

BRING
-Yourself, friends
-Healthy stuff for the potluck
-Shares: books, CDs, DVDs or anything that you’d like to loan or gift at the meeting

SITES
Check out a recent post at the league blog:

http://www.theabundanceleague.org/2008/08/ridesharing-website-under-fire-from-bus.html

And learn about our host, SOMA Creativity Center here:

http://www.somacreativitycenter.org

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Denver Meeting Notes: August 2008

Published on August 21, 2008 in Denver Events by Susan C. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

We enjoyed another fruitful harvest at this month’s Abundance League meeting, with guest presenter Lawrence Phipps of Apogaea. We met at a new spot this month, Denver’s own St. Mark’s/Thin Man in their downstairs salon. Through sharing our passions, projects, needs, and gifts, many connections were made. Among the connections made (and gifts shared) at this month’s Abundance League were the following:

-Chelsea gave Lawrence a resource on how to get a “reprieve from the tic-toc man” through polyphasic sleep techniques

-Lawrence brainstormed with Susan location options for her Laundromat Project as well as potential for approximating to her vision of a creative arts center/public space through smaller, more realistic steps.

-Margarita approached Susan about a possible retreat facilitation for one of her boards

-Bagus and Andrew shared their passion for jazz music

-Margarita offered her event planning expertise to the group (possibly for a future tAL gathering?…)

-Susan will engage with Chelsea’s business planning expertise (and her ability to inspire people to take risks) to guide the Laundromat project

-Lawrence found potential “fresh blood” for Apogaea with tAL members for future projects

-Taj expressed a need to clarify his focus and personal core, and through a retreat planning consultation with Susan was able to obtain a customized retreat plan (free of charge to tAL members).

Lawrence presented an overview of Apogaea, Colorado’s annual version of ‘Burning Man’, where people come to explore their inner superheroes through creating, participating, and sharing at an experimental arts/music forum. There is no selling at Apogaea; rather, it’s a gift economy. Gifts come in many forms: art, performance, installations, food, drink, and anything else under the sun and beyond. One of the main highlights noted by Lawrence was that Apogaea has been inspired by Burning Man’s new paradigm of community service (Hurricane Katrina rebuild, new technology, and inventions to name a few), and seeks to plant seeds in Colorado to germinate this paradigm locally.

 

Passions/Projects, Needs, and Gifts 

Susan
P/P: community building, group dynamics, Laundromat Project (place for creativity and community)
Needs: board members, financial planning, a project partner
Gifts: group dynamics, process thinking, retreat planning (individual & groups)

Bagus
P/P: helping people publish their content on internet, project management, publishing platform intended to promote green, conscious consumption; music (keyboard) from New Orleans
Needs: music group that matches his skill and ambition, music network
Gifts: Organizational platform, Tibet connections, wildlife research connections

Margarita
P/P: networking, meeting people in unusual ways, environmental sustainability (works at Excel), Denver Center for Performing Arts volunteer
Needs: clarifying her next step
Gifts: event planning, community development, marketing, promotion, bilingual, networking

Lawrence
P/P: DJing, creation of a giant dream machine, collaborative dissonance
Needs: Time
Gifts: Personal network

Taj
P/P: social networks, academic extroversion, marketing, tAL, ColfaxLove.com, Photo Safaris
Needs: clarity of focus, defining personal core, reign in feeling of being spread thin, retreat
Gifts: marketing, social networking

Chelsea
P/P: “creative lubricant” activities, faciliated learning experiences, conscious life co-creation, self-learning
Needs: next step career planning (in 12-18 months), Apogaea sites with 50+ acres of land
Gifts: structuring things, counseling people, coaching people to take risks, flexible, adaptive, creative problem solving

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San Francisco, You’re Invited: Thu 8/21 6pm at ArtHouse – Chris Carlsson + Nowtopia

Published on August 12, 2008 in San Francisco Events by Neal Gorenflo. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Please join us Thursday, August 21st, as Chris Carlsson leads a discussion about his new book, Nowtopia: How Pirate Programmers, Outlaw Bicyclists, and Vacant-lot Gardners Are Inventing the Future Today.

The many categories of Nowtopian activity, in Chris’ words, “are windows into a scarcely visible social transformation that challenges politics as we know it…In myriad ways, people are taking back their time and technological know-how from the market and in small under-the-radar ways, are making life better right now. In doing so, they also set the foundation—technically AND socially—for a genuine movement of liberation from market life…”

Chris is executive director of the multimedia history project Shaping San Francisco, as well as a writer, publisher, editor, and community organizer. His work over the last 25 years has focused on the themes of horizontal communications, organic communities, and public space. He’s one of the founders of the ground-breaking magazine Processed World, a co-instigator of the original Critical Mass rides, and author of the novel After the Deluge, a story about post-economic San Francisco in 2157. Learn more about Chris and his new book Nowtopia here.

We hope to see you there for a great discussion. And as always, come ready to talk about your passions, needs, and gifts (in about a minute) during announcements so that we can help each other create the lives and communities of our dreams – right here in reality.

If you would like to be a volunteer facilitator of this meeting, just respond to this e-mail or volunteer at the meeting. Instructions for facilitating will be provided. It’s fun and easy!

MEETING
What: The Abundance League
When: Thursday, August 21st, 6:00-10:00pm (you can come and go anytime during the meeting)
Where: ArtHouse, 1360 Mission Street, San Francisco (in the bottom floor this time) ArtHouse is located on Mission between 9th and 10th in the Civic Center area, two blocks South of Civic Center BART.
Cost: Donations are welcome to cover the space rental, which helps to support ArtHouse, but are not mandatory.

AGENDA
6:00 – 6:30 – Mingle
6:30 – 7:15 – Member announcements (your passions, needs and gifts)
7:15 – 7:30 – Break: nosh, mingle, exchange support
7:30 – 8:30 – Presentation & discussion
8:30 – 10:00 Mingle, exchange support, clean up

Learn more about our meetings here:
http://www.theabundanceleague.org/2007/08/about- abundance-league-meetings.html

BRING
-Yourself, your friends
-Healthy stuff for the potluck – finger foods recommended as kitchen facilities are limited.
-Shares: books, CDs, DVDs or anything that you’d like to loan or gift at the meeting.

SITES
Check out a recent post at the league blog:

http://www.theabundanceleague.org/2008/06/money-can-make-you-happyif-you-give-it.html

And learn about our host ArtHouse:

http://arthouseca.org

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Denver Meeting Notes: July 2008

Published on July 26, 2008 in Denver Events by Taj Moore. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Although we had no speaker scheduled for this month, a lively discussion and meaningful connections made this tAL one to remember. Jerry and Donna Talbert joined us this month on their trip from the Baltimore area in Maryland.

Here’s a recap of Passions/Projects, Needs, and Gifts for the group. Even if you did not attend, this is an opportunity for you to connect with others through their highlights, and even network with one another toward fulfillment of ourselves and others in our community! See a member you’d like to connect with? Send them a note, ask them for help, offer your gifts!

Upcoming tAL meetings are scheduled for August 13 and September 17 (both Wednesdays). Keep up to date here:
http://denver.abundanceleague.org

We have room in the schedule for speakers in the next six months. If you know someone you think should be a speaker at the Abundance League, please reply to this message so we can get started.

Susan + Taj

SUSAN

Passions/Projects: Clarity of intention, dance, Laundromat Project

Needs: Website development, board of directors, financial planning, people interested in laundry, arts, dance, retreat work, organic/local food, and holistic health (and any combination of these, even better!)

Gifts: Retreat facilitation, working with group dynamics, gardening/cooking, life/work coaching

JERRY

Passions/Projects: History, US, Civil War, environmental work, economically viable solutions to environmental challenges

Needs: More business for environmental consultants

Gifts: Storytelling about civil war, dream interpretation

DONNA

Passions/Projects: Making jewelry, cooking creatively for special occasions, nesting and making the house nice, bargain hunting, energy work

Needs: Courses and seed money to do more with jewelry, metalsmith classes, a good small group like her old meditation group, learn energy work

Gifts: Jewelry making, a great place to stay for a visit in historic Relay, Maryland!

TAJ

Passions/Projects: Social networking and creative community building.

Needs: in process of figuring out how various projects fit together under one concept … to find core. Getting management consulting help from tAL member Elizabeth on identifying core.

Gifts: marketing perspective and strategy ideas on your projects

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San Francisco, You’re Invited: Thu 7/17 6pm at ArtHouse – Michael Vav + Social Creativity

Published on July 15, 2008 in San Francisco Events by Neal Gorenflo. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Please join us this Thursday, July 17th, as Michael Vav leads a discussion about social creativity – in a new venue (see below for details).

Michael has designed and lead a hundred “social experiments” – from Funeral lotteries to Mobile Mystery Cabaret – that are “intentional interactions and awareness adventures that induce insight as an antidote to a life on autopilot.”

In his words:

“At the Abundance League, I’ll guide us in creating simple ways to unlock more connection, inspiration and playfulness with the people in our lives.

I’ll share about how people’s lives are enriched from participating in social experiments. Then we’ll co-create an intentional interaction or two. We’ll distill where these subtle shifts of what we’re doing, and how we’re being, unlock more connection, inspiration and playfulness than life on autopilot. Then we’ll discuss ways we can easily carry this spark from orchestrated scenarios and into real-time way-today interactions in any area of our lives.

Let’s take lil’ risks to yield lots of aliveness.
Let’s trade in small talk for inspired conversation.
Let’s swap out complacent patterns for fresh playfulness.
Let’s invent ways to get out of default mode, and choose something new in

our home lives
our work worlds
our lifestyles
our alone time.”

And as always, come ready to talk about your passions, needs, and gifts (in under two minutes) during announcements so that we can help each other create the lives and communities of our dreams – right here in reality.

Leaguers Kim Connector and Bosco will be facilitating.

Learn more about Michael here: http://michaelvav.com/events

MEETING
What: The Abundance League
When: Thursday, July 17th, 6:00-10:00pm (you can come and go anytime during the meeting)
Where: ArtHouse, 1360 Mission Street, Suite 200, San Francisco
ArtHouse is located on Mission between 9th and 10th in the Civic Center area, two blocks
South of Civic Center BART

AGENDA
6:00 – 6:30 – Mingle
6:30 – 7:15 – Member announcements (your passions, needs and gifts)
7:15 – 7:30 – Break, nosh, mingle, exchange support
7:30 – 8:30 – Presentation & discussion
8:30 – 10:00 Nosh, mingle, exchange support, clean up

Learn more about our meetings here:
http://www.theabundanceleague.org/2007/08/about- abundance-league-meetings.html

BRING
-Yourself, your friends!
-Healthy stuff for the potluck
-Shares: books, CDs, DVDs or anything that you’d like to loan or gift at the meeting.

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