Tag Archive for 'Harbin Events'

Abundance League Chapters

There are Abundance League chapters in San Francisco (founded in 2005) Harbin Hot Springs (2007) and Denver (2008). If you’d like to attend a meeting, please contact the following folks:

San Francisco, California – Neal Gorenflo (gorenflo at gmail dot com) or check this blog for meeting announcements. We usually hold meetings third Thursdays. Meeting announcements are posted the week prior.

Harbin Hot Springs, California – Russell Gonzaga (events at harbin dot org) or check their site.

Denver, Colorado – Taj Moore, e-mail tajomoore at gmail dot com or check their site.

If you’d like to start a chapter, just hold a meeting each month following the format in this post and contact me (Neal, see above) to let me know you’ve started holding meetings. I’ll list your chapter on this site. And feel free to contact me for more information about starting your own chapter. I highly recommend holding meetings. It’s fun and an amazing learning experience.

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San Francisco, Meeting Notes: February 2008

Chun Yu hosted a great discussion about her experiences growing up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and her transformation from a world class scientist to award winning poet.

There are many lessons from the discussion, though one resonates with the values of league members – pursue your passion regardless of the obstacles, no matter how improbable your success. And involve others in your dream.

Chun made the transition from the arcane world of laboratory science to the equally arcane world of street poets and publishing. She did whatever it took to make it happen, including leaving her country and mastering a second language by years of regular reading and writing. While Chun did not let othersdefine her, she did find collaborators to help her realize her dreams.

Chun is an Abundance League exemplar, and we thank her, and everyone who attended, for sharing their life and work. Learn more about Chun here: http://www.chunyu.org

Our next meeting is Thursday March 20th. Fund raising expert Gayle Roberts will be hosting a discussion about grassroots fund raising strategies and how to connect to donors by linking their dreams with your organizations’ work. Learn more about Gayle here: http://www.gayleroberts.com

We hope to see you then to continue our experiment in creating a social reality that manifests fun, meaningful work, intellectual stimulation, health, and happiness. The social world is ours to create. It’s not only an opportunity for fun, but a power we’re given that we must honor by exercising it wisely.

Please see the member announcements below, and feel free to reach out to get or give help. There are lots of wonderful needs and gifts listed.

MEMBER ANNOUNCEMENTS

Name: Neal Gorenflo
Passion: getting people together and encouraging them to help each other
Needs: need a new space to hold League meetings! Please contact me if you have or know of a space
Gifts: book recommendations on society and culture

Name: Pearl Lee
Passion: connect with people from different background & culture
Needs: C++/Java projects, friends, weight-loss programme, English
Gifts: love to help others to organize things, just email me!

Name: Doris
Passion: people and urban spaces, social network analysis
Needs: take some furniture, a big table, new work desk, speakers, going on a trip across the US, need places to stay
Gifts: come to New York, I’ll show you around.

Name: Russell
Passion: Writing and working with passionate people.
Needs: a laptop computer! And presenters for Harbin Abundance League
Gifts: Resource for arts community, Asian/Islamic research and information. Writing/editing.

Name: JoAnn Saccato
Passion: Co-creating the Lake County Community Cooperative through self-organizing
Needs: Treasurer, feasibility study, fellowship grant for masters project
Gifts: communication, writing, Reiki Master/Teacher, local connection in Lake County

Name: Shaun Brady
Passion: Green Construction Development/Infill, Green-Tech Industries, Waste-Conversion, Recycling Biz Ideas, Community Bldg Projects
Needs: Mentors, Coaches, Advisors, Networking Groups (Green Tech)
Gifts: Sports/Trips Enthusiast, Catering Service Lover-I’ll Volunteer

Name: Jenn Cho
Passion: Art, movies, animations, computer modeling, computer graphics
Needs: creative and conscious-minded friends who can bounce off ideas/inspiration with me
Gifts: graphical design, photoshop stuff

Name: Colleen Schell
Passion: Bringing story driven independent film to the masses. Taking boys living on the streets and connecting them with basketball scholarships at high school prep school.
Needs: funding for the business, CEO for the business, funding for the boys
Gifts: My community connections – advertiaing

Name:Seth Lepore
Passion: Teaching people how to authentically and intuitively access their true voice through body, energy and spatial awareness. Multi-disciplinary art projects involving music, theater, dance and visual art. Localized economies.
Needs: Help with website design. Leads to spaces in the bay area for performance/installation projects.
Gifts: Sustainable investing, connections to seemingly unrelated but yet integrated concepts and subjects.

Name: Ray Tobey
Passion: Changing our model of leadership from Machiavelli to Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
Needs: Volunteers for a special election campaign. On April 8, my friend Barry Hermanson is on the ballot for U.S. Congress in SF and San Mateo. He’s trying to reduce the overwhelming military slice in our national budget pie. See http://www.barryhermanson.org.
Gifts: If you want an elected office in local government, school board, city council, etc, I can arrange that! I can also offer advice on html, C++ and other technologies.
Web: www.bionictoad.com

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San Francisco Meeting Notes: January 2008

Thanks to everyone who made the January meeting happen, including our featured speakers from Harbin and Doris for hosting the meeting in her home. It was a good showing, around 30 people in all. 

Russell and Heather, our presenters from Harbin Hot Springs, shared
what it’s like to live in their intentional community. It’s a special place where
they take community seriously, and it shows in all they do. They invited y’all
to visit them and see for yourself.

Below are the meeting notes. There’s gold in them thar hills, really.
You should check ‘em out because the gifts and needs are matching up all
over the place. Feel free to reach out to help and get help.

Our next meeting is Thursday, February 28th. We’re featuring Chun Yu,
an award winning poet who is making a documentary about a Japanese
man who taught school in China right after WWII. She will share this true
story about an ordinary man who does an extraordinary thing in response to
an atrocity. Learn more about Chun here: http://www.chunyu.org. Her life
is also an amazing story.

We hope to see you then to create culture and connection that manifest
fun, friendship, meaningful work, intellectual stimulation, authentic connection, health, and happiness.

JANUARY MEMBER ANNOUNCEMENTS

Name: Maritza
Passion: changing Western culture
Needs: web developer
Gifts: communications strategy, nonprofit knowledge

Name: Doris
Passion: urbanism, urban scouting, people
Needs: live / work loft in NYC at a good price
Gifts: scientific knowledge about social networks & social network analysis

Name: Xander Page
Passion: facilitating authentic dialog and global change
Needs: collaborative conversation with social entreprenuers
Gifts: holding space for visioning and creating, planning out of intention

Name: Victor Rose
Passion: community, decentralized and nonhierarchical
Needs: new career in the city
Gifts: trained clairvoyant, willing to work exchange

Name: James Miner
Passion: fresh air
Needs: writer
Gifts: software for developing a book cover

Name: Russell Gonzaga
Passion: Elyseum Writers Group, Harbin Community, Sufism
Needs: attendees at upcoming Harbin Elyseum retreat, presenters at Harbin
Gifts: resource and info for youth advocacy, asian arts, and Islam

Name: Tom
Passion: understanding and helping others to understand where we are now, as a society
and more. And where we’d like to be. Abundance League, sustainability, networking,
disseminating information on the web
Needs: more participation / links for my blog, http://wecanchangetheworld.wordpress.com
Gifts: research, writing, networking, sustainability

Name: JoAnn Saccato
Passion: meditation, living remotely, my dog Shylila, creating an environmental
education center for youth from a abandoned miniature golf course
Needs: networking w/ possible partners to create above passions, opportunities
to turn this project into a masters program
Gifts: writing, facilitating, Reiki masters, teacher

Name: Lucci
Passion: developing social environments that model harmonious living and nuture universal condition for thriving
Needs: progressive oriented real estate developer to consult with on urban land trust acquisition and find support for pursuing my passion
Gifts: visioning and strategic design, life mapping,

Name: Amber Bieg
Passion: trees, environment, mama gaia, technology, equity, balance
Needs: network analysis, scalability analysis for implementing tree maps, fundraising and support for film project
Gifts: video production, business planning, marketing consulting, networking, fundraising, public speaking

Name: Emily Utter
Passion: environment, bikes
Needs: web developer
Gifts: help you network with bay area enviro group

Name: Sharon Hoffman
Passion: connecting people, esp through art & media as expressions of people’s stories
Needs: knowledge of more like-minded people & orgs in addition to Abundance League
Gifts: help with how to tell your story or the story of your org.

Name: Matthew Blom
Passions/gifts: supporting people in having thriving relationship in every area of their lives. Helping organizations with internal communications.
Needs: information about how to set up credit card payment
communecology.com

Name: Tony Ricucci
Passion: environmental sustainability, social justice, spiritual fulfillment
Needs: professional collaboration opportunities fit for attorneys who have soul missions
Gifts: Awakening the Dream Symposium facilitator, bringing activism to causes, aligning purpose
with with creative visions

Name: Neal
Passion: fostering mutual support
Needs: foundation connections
Gifts: social science book recommendations

Name: dmenace
Passion/gifts: empower people who do not know what power they have. Healthcare – empower those who work in H/C and also who recieve healthcare
Needs: change my attitude about money, increase my income. Someone to teach me how to do this. to start my career as a health care consultant.

Name: Allison Quaid
Passion: art, sustainability, action for building a better world
Needs: good climate change ideas
Gifts: connection, collaboration, know environmental NGOs + city landscaper in Bay Area

Name: Bruce Tidwell
Passion: action against the machine, action to build a better world
Needs: I want to get with groups to take action
Gifts: jack of all trades, communication, healthcare

Name: Revi Schlesinger
Passion: business, sustainability, creativity, community
Needs: volunteers support to SOMAcreativitycenter.org for fundraising + technology
Gifts: capacity to figure out how to get it done and do it

Name: Seth Lepore
Passion: teaching body-based voice work, creating music, sustainable investments, performing, the labryinth, local economies
Needs: connections to assist in developing an organization for artists to live sustainably in all it’s dimensions
Gifts: voice lessons, a local sustainable investment club

Name: Liz Becker, Becker & Co., a strategy and leadership firm
Passion: Leadership, adventure, my children, community, poetry, sustainability
Needs: access to sustainability leaders for book and documentary
Gifts: connection to my network of women leaders, East Bay contacts, leadership consulting & organizational development folk

Name: Andrea Kallai
Passion: developing a TV channel with shows that make you feel good!
Needs: help cultivating my channel
Gifts: organizing closets and other things, pilates, yoga instruction

Name: Heather L. Salmon
Passion: inspiring greatness
Needs: spread the word the dangers of cell tower radiation
Gifts: teacher, priestess, healer, producer, activist

Name: Remi Tan
Passion: architecture & sustainability
Needs: looking for green developer and arts venue operator jazz venue project, good solar power
provider contact
Gifts: design, green building, knowledge

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Founders

Neal Gorenflo and Scott Levkoff founded Abundance League in April of 2005 after a months-long dialog that Neal initiated.

Maritza Schafer and Polly Whitaker became co-founders shortly thereafter adding their wisdom and energy to the creation of Abundance League.

After a few months, Scott and Polly decided to branch off on a similar but separate project called Beauty Engine.

Maritza and Neal have been co-hosting San Francisco Abundance League monthly meetings since then.

In 2007, Russell Gonzago formed a chapter in Harbin Hot Springs in Sonoma County California. In 2008, Taj Moore and Susan Coates formed a chapter in Denver, Colorado.

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San Francisco, You’re Invited: Thu 1/24 6pm – Russell Gonzaga + Harbin Hot Springs

Happy New Year Leaguers!

We’re off to a great start this year. We’re branching out! Russell Gonzaga and Taj Moore, formerly of the SF Abundance League, are starting monthly meetings in their new hometowns of Harbin Hot Springs and Denver, respectively. Benefits of this growth spurt are already flowing. Russell invited past SF Abundance League speakers to present at Harbin, with a free overnight stay included. The offer is still good. And two former speakers, Matthew Blom of Communecology and John Furey of Mindtime, are talking to Russell about about holding professional workshops at Harbin.

This leads us to this month’s meeting. Russell will be presenting about Harbin Hot Springs. Harbin is a business, but is also a very special community, one that includes it’s guests, workers, those who live in neighboring towns, and more. It’s also a nondenominational spiritual center and retreat for activists. Because of it’s unique history and mission, it has developed norms and community technology that foster social harmony and abundance. In other words, they take community seriously and it pays. Their hotel has one of the highest occupancy rates around. And people flock from all over the world to work, live, and even retire at Harbin. Russell will speak about Harbin’s unique community and it’s growing role as a retreat center for activists. I hope you will join us.

And as always, please come prepared to tell us about your passions, discuss your needs, and share your gifts so that we can support each other in leading inspired lives.

MEETING
What: The Abundance League
When: Thursday, Jan. 24th, 6:00pm
Where: 1168 Folsom, #304, San Francisco, call 867.0429 if you have
trouble finding the meeting

AGENDA
6:00 – 6:30 – Mingle
6:30 – 7:15 – Member announcements
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 that you‘d like to loan or gift at the meeting.

BLOG
Check out the recent posts:
http://www.theabundanceleague.org

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