Agenda
- Check In
- Review WWWs
- Review Agenda
- Next Service Logistics
- Newsletter
- Earth Day
- OnePagePlan
- Village
- Summer Solstice trip
- Evaluation
Check In
- Shelley ... sick (still) and discouraged :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-(
- Brandon ... yay, happy Hank
- Ben ... my legs still hurt, makes it hard to go down the stairs from my third floor apartment or bend down to turn on my surge protector
- Sequoia ... went to OMSI, had a wonderful time ... talking about it with Brandon later, he said "Thank you for helping me remember"
WWWs from last time
- <s>Brandon ... follow your topical community protocol for this week ... ongoing
- Brandon ... meditate and keep track of which days ... ongoing</s>
- Brandon ... write a blog post ... by next call
- <s>Shelley ... follow your topical community protocol for this week ... ongoing
- Shelley ... meditate (barely) and keep track of which days ... ongoing
- Ben ... follow your topical community protocol for this week ... ongoing
- Ben ... meditate and keep track of which days ... ongoing
- Ben ... draft a 2012 first-quarter newsletter ... by next call
- Ben ... write at least two sections in the book ... by next call</s>
- Eric ... meditate and keep track of which days ... ongoing (?)
- <s>Eric ... write one more section of chapter 7 ... by next call</s>
- Eric ... make list of possible topical communities to follow ... by next call (?)
- <s>Eric ... look into schedule around the Summer Solstice ... by next call</s>
WWWs
- Brandon ... follow your topical community protocol for this week ... ongoing
- Brandon ... meditate and keep track of which days ... ongoing
- Brandon ... add Hank Burroughs to the newsletter lists ... by today
- Brandon ... look into getting a tour of the house ... by Sunday
- Brandon ... write a response to Eric about the Solstice ... by today
- Shelley ... meditate and keep track of which days ... ongoing
- Shelley ... pick a new Topical Community ... by next call
- Shelley ... talk to the Vliets about Earth Day ... by today
- Ben ... follow your topical community protocol for this week ... ongoing
- Ben ... meditate and keep track of which days ... ongoing
- Ben ... write up the notes from the Contact Conference on the wiki ... by next call
- Ben ... add pictures and send out the newsletter ... by next call
Next Service Logistics
Service Saturday April 21, 10am PDT, in Silverton (Brandon) Rotation: Brandon, Eric, Jerry?, Shelley, Ben
In-person service April 21, evening, if the Vliets don't come to Silverton with us
Newsletter
Welcome to 2012! In keeping with our belief in science, the SolSeed Movement hasn’t been preparing for the end of the world. Here’s a quick rundown of what we have been working on:
- Our Spring Equinox celebration at the Seed Village was a spectacular success, featuring seed planting, arts and crafts, a demonstration of how seasons work, dancing and music provided by the incomparable Lori Henriques, and a festive brunch for all concerned. Over fifty people showed up, about evenly split between kids and adults, making this the largest single SolSeed event to date.
- We’re excited to welcome a new active member of the SolSeed Movement: Eric Saumur from Ottawa, founder of Biospheric Communionism. He’s joined some of our weekly service calls, inviting family and friends to participate, and he contributed a whole new chapter to the book we’re working on.
- The first draft of that book, the big one that will do a thorough job of describing what we’re about, is almost finished. We did some reorganizing of the table of contents, and then got Eric’s new chapter resulting in further adjustments to the plan. As with any evolutionary process, we’re adapting to the changes and the book is becoming stronger as a result.
- Brandon and Shelley have a new baby on the way! That means they’ve decided not to take any big trips this year, so I’m representing the SolSeed Movement by myself at a couple of space conferences. The first one was the Contact Conference, which took place the last weekend in March in Sunnyvale. It featured many inspiring speakers, including our friend Gus and SETI luminaries Jill Tarter, Seth Shostak, and Frank Drake, but even more amazing was the Cultures of the Imagination project, in which two teams invented alien cultures from scratch and then acted out a first-contact scenario on stage at the end of the event.
- Our work with kindred “topical communities” has begun to pay off. Members of the Secular Families Network attended our Equinox celebration, and our plans for Earth Day include an in-person meeting with the leader of the West Coast Ecovillage/CELSS Planners Facebook group. (Again, CELSS stands for Closed Ecological Life Support Systems; we’ll hopefully get to visit one that’s under construction near Silverton, Oregon.)
In the upcoming months, we’ll continue to work on our book and start on planning an event for the Summer Solstice. More updates coming soon!
Thanks for reading!
Ben Sibelman
Earth Day
- Arrive a little before 10 AM (departing Portland at 8:30 to be safe)
- See if we can meet with Hank around 11:30
- Leave whenever
One Page Plan
2012 1 Year Goals
- Media: Finish what we're working on for the big book (possibly as two books/parts) and publish it
- Outreach: Maintain and develop our topical community protocols all year
- Spiritual practice: Maintain and develop the spiritual practice (daily practice, weekly services, and big celebrations for the solstices and equinoxes)
- Village: Core membership (euphemism) all lives in same neighborhood
2012 2nd Quarter Goals, due 6/30/2012
- Book
- Yellow: Finishing drafts of chapters 7 and 8
- Green:
- 12 quality blog posts (short, have a picture or some other media that involves parts of the mind other than the cerebral cortex)
- A complete draft book outline that flows and makes sense
- Have something written for each of the topics that we think is important to have in the book
- Super Green: Finish a draft of the book
- Topical Communities
- Yellow:
- Follow our existing topical community protocols
- Every member active at the start of the quarter has a topical community
- Green: Text for 6 messages done for the SolSeedProtocol
- Super Green: Finish a draft of the SolSeedProtocol
- Major Events
- Yellow:
- Go to Silverton for Earth Day
- <s>Send in an abstract by April 20 for a talk at the Space Elevator Conference</s>
- Have a small, local Solstice celebration (unless we meet Green goal)
- Green:
- Have a retreat-type Solstice celebration including Eric
- Super Green:
- Have a really awesome Solstice celebration including a Triathlon and Chocolate Fondue
- Village
- Yellow: Ben does preliminary research
- Green: Ben narrows down a list of places to apply
- Super Green: Ben actually applies to at least three places
Village
There's a house for sale 3 houses away, on the corner across from the school
- Currently advertised at $279,000 (payments would be about $2100/month including taxes)
- Brandon has thought about buying it and renting it out
- We could tour it, maybe next Sunday
Summer Solstice
- Locations:
- Unconference at the coast
- Need a safe swimming location near Portland for the triathlon
- Time: Thursday June 21st (solstice) to Sunday June 24th
- Unconference Thursday-Saturday
- Triathlon on Sunday as a family-friendly outreach event
Evaluation
- Shelley ... I felt better ... Tylenol, or SolSeed withdrawal?
- Brandon ... I just love working on SolSeed
- Ben ... I thought we were really productive (by ignoring our time constraints)