We’d Love to See You
Prefer a different calendar style? You may choose from Posterboard, Month, Week, Day, or Agenda. Simply click on the gray box on the left that currently shows “Posterboard” and you will be able to select any style you like.
A conference for inspiration, education, networking, and action. September 21-24, 2017 (Thursday evening through Sunday noon).
From the Free Produce Movement to abolish slavery to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and divestment campaigns to end apartheid in South Africa, people of faith and workers of all stripes have applied collective economic resistance to pursue greater freedom, dignity, justice, and peace. The United States and others still face increased corporate power on a global scale, precarious Wall Street financial meltdowns, widening wealth and income inequality, the criminalization of poverty, and other threats to the common good and true democracy. How then, can we apply the wisdom of our elders to the unique realities of our time? Disputes about the effectiveness of economic resistance tactics and their morality have stirred controversy in faith communities including among Quakers. We will examine how economic resistance tools have been used to successfully achieve greater justice and equality and how they can be applied to the particular challenges of the 21st century. Together, we will create a learning community with an increased understanding of how boycotts, strikes, divestment, and similar tactics can be effectively used within our commitment to a nonviolent social change strategy.
Queries:
- What economic resistance tactics have you seen used in the past? How are they being used today?
- What of worship and Light do you find in economic resistance tactics?
- What organizations or structures do you think are needed to support the success of economic resistance? What do they look like in your town, city, state, country?
Because we want to make this conference as accessible as possible, we are offering a tiered registration scale from $300 to $850. Click the following link for registration information.
There will be:
- Front-line experts to fill us in on the history and current usage of the economic resistance tactics of divestment, boycott, sanctions, and bargaining;
- Examination of the unique challenges and opportunities of economic resistance in the twenty first century;
- Discussion and consideration of the unique role of unions in bargaining for the common good;
- Exercises in planning a strategic nonviolent campaign with winning steps that increase our momentum and draw wider participation – using creativity, drama, humor, and people power;
- Reflection groups to process our experiences in small groups.
Confirmed Leaders (more to come)
Dalit Baum, Ph.D., is the co-founder of Who Profits from the Occupation, and of the Coalition of Women for Peace in Israel. Dalit is a feminist scholar and teacher, who has been teaching about militarism and about the global economy from a feminist perspective in Israeli and American universities. She has been active with various groups in the Israeli anti-occupation and democracy movement, including Black Laundry, Boycott from Within, Zochrot, Anarchists against the Wall and Women in Black. Dalit has headed the Economic Activism for Palestine Program of Global Exchange. She has worked for AFSC in the San Francisco office since 2013 and currently serves the organization as Director of Economic Activism.
Travel directions to Pendle Hill.
Come and enjoy a free art therapy workshop hosted by Devon Walls. Participants will get to build their own versions of the masks as seen at MJ Freed Theater lobby. Email mjfreedevents@gmail.com to sign up now!
The Steering Group is the governing body of Transition Town Media. Comprised of representatives of each of the current Working Groups, the officers of TTM, and any other interested and committed members of TTM, this body meets twice a month – on the 2nd Monday to discuss current projects and initiatives and makes decisions regarding future activities, on the 4th Monday to be together, unwind together, and recharge our batteries.
Everyone is welcome to attend these meetings and contribute to the discussions. We value your ideas and input.
Come enjoy the food, the music and a variety of vendors and organizations promoting awareness and care for our environment.
The movement to grant legal rights to nature has been a long time coming, with the idea first being floated in an article written by Christopher Stone in 1972. The theory remained mostly dormant for decades, until Tamaqua Borough in Schuylkill County, PA – just an hour north of Pendle Hill – became the first community on earth to grant legal protections to ecosystems in 2006.
Since that time, over three dozen communities in nine states across the US have recognized rights for the natural environment. The work has also spread internationally, with Ecuador recognizing rights for nature in that country’s national constitution in 2008. Bolivia, New Zealand, and India have also recognized rights for the natural environment. And in 2016, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin added rights of nature to its tribal constitution.
And now, as the movement spreads into the courts and the streets in the US, two PA communities are again out front. In Grant Township, Indiana County, and Highland Township, Elk County, the Little Mahoning Watershed and the Crystal Spring Ecosystem, respectively, have filed to intervene in federal court cases that seek to prohibit frack waste dumping in those communities.
With climate change and habitat destruction increasing at terrifying rates, it’s imperative that we rethink our relationship to the natural world, including the legal and organizing tools we use to protect all life. Giving nature rights is a movement whose time has come.
Leader: Chad Nicholson is the statewide Pennsylvania Organizer for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). He travels the state working with communities facing a range of industrial threats, e.g., defending two communities in federal court (including Grant Township) facing toxic injection wells; multiple communities pursuing Home Rule campaigns to increase community control over harmful corporate projects; and helping dozens of other communities fighting harms that range from corporate herbicide spraying to factory farms to sewage sludge spreading to fracking to massive energy corridors.
Travel directions to Pendle Hill. Click to view the flyer.
Join with Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) on the first Tuesday of every month at 6:30pm.
After five years of action by Earth Quaker Action Team, PNC announced today a shift in its policy that will effectively cease its financing of mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia.
Together we have shifted the policy of the seventh largest U.S. bank! This marks a major turnaround for PNC, who for years refused to budge on this issue. After more than 125 actions, their desire to continue business as usual proved no match for EQAT and our allies.
As more and more banks stop financing mountaintop removal, we expect it to become increasingly difficult over the next few years for mountaintop removal coal companies to secure financing for their destructive operations. So, join us in thanking the people of Appalachia who continue to inspire us and take bold action.
Celebrate and share this news widely. Together we have shown that strategic nonviolent direct action makes a difference. EQAT will continue to keep an eye on PNC to be sure that it follows through with this policy change. We will be looking forward to the next campaign.
We are at a moment in history when many of us feel both the great love that we have for our amazing, beautiful world – and our despair about the state of this same precious world.
This dynamic, interactive workshop, is based on the teachings of Joanna Macy, which has inspired many thousands of people to engage wholeheartedly in working for a life-sustaining society; turning despair and apathy in the face of social and ecological crises into constructive, collaborative action.
During this weekend we will use exercises and practices drawn from deep ecology and systems theory to explore our gratitude, grief and curiosity along with our own unique gifts. We will look at what separates us and rediscover our connectivity with all life as we develop a new way of seeing the world – as our larger living body.
Joanna Macy is the root teacher of “The Work That Reconnects,” known world-wide for empowering activists in social and ecological justice.
Lynne Iser, MPH, teaches deep ecology, conscious aging and community building as she works with others to create a thriving and just world for future generations; utilizing the work of Joanna Macy and The Pachamama Alliance. Her website, Elder-Activists.org, inspires, educates, supports and organizes other — primarily on issues concerning climate change and social justice.
Rabbi Mordechai Liebling is founder and director of the Social Justice Organizing Program at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Prior to this he was the Executive Vice-President of Jewish Funds for Justice. He was trained by Joanna Macy in “The Work That Reconnects.” He leads workshops and retreats on the intersection of sustainability, social justice, and spirituality.
Mordechai and Lynne have recently returned from sabbatical during which they led “The Work That Reconnects” workshops in Mexico, Colombia and Peru.
Travel directions to Pendle Hill. FAQs about Short-Term Education Programs (please read before calling). Click to view the flyer.
|
The group meets on the second Monday of the month. We are creating a community of vegans and vegetarians who meet to enjoy food and ideas, discuss current events and support one another. Attendees are invited (but not required) to bring a veggie-friendly treat to share. Everyone is welcome. For more information, contact MUPFL staff member Gail Freedman at mailto:veggietabletalk@gmail.com or 610-566-1918. |
The Steering Group is the governing body of Transition Town Media. Comprised of representatives of each of the current Working Groups, the officers of TTM, and any other interested and committed members of TTM, this body meets once a month on 2nd Mondays to discuss current projects and initiatives and makes decisions regarding future activities.
Everyone is welcome to attend these meetings and contribute to the discussions. We value your ideas and input.
HeadRoom is closed after 5pm. Ring the doorbell and someone will buzz you in.
Snacks at 6:30, lecture at 7:00, West Chester, PA Borough Hall, 401 East Gay Street, Room 240
PA State Representative (and former two-term Mayor of West Chester) Carolyn Comitta will update us on bills that have been or will be considered this year in the state legislature specific to the environment; impacts of the current budget on the state’s ability to manage and protect our air, water and land resources; and how we as citizens should respond. Representative Comitta serves on the Environmental Resources & Energy committee and has also been appointed to the PA Joint Legislative Air & Water Pollution Control & Conservation Committee.
