initiating action in your community
March 3rd, 2008
Can your community build a regionally based and democratic economy? And what
is required to provide affordable access to land for farming and housing,
capital for new business development, and meaningful work for local
residents? Important capacities in the face of a changing world economy.
For twenty-eight years the E. F. Schumacher Society has envisioned and
implemented strategies for building sustainable local economies. These
citizen driven models include community land trusts, micro-credit programs,
local currencies, and worker owned businesses.
Both the theoretical and practical material developed in this decades long
work are available at the Society's website
(http://www.smallisbeautiful.org). These essays, program histories, and
legal documents are foundation material that may be used and adapted by
other communities in pursuit of greater economic self-determination.
For those who wish to explore this material in more depth, the E. F.
Schumacher Society is conducting its annual seminar "Building Sustainable
Local Economies." The dates are May 21st to 25th. The location is Great
Barrington, Massachusetts, site of the E. F. Schumacher Library and
Archives. Subject matter includes overview of land, labor, and capital in a
sustainable economy; examination of organizational documents of community
economic programs modeled in the Berkshires; site visits and discussions
with principals involved in these programs; and participant led discussion
of potential program application in their own communities. A list of seminar
workshops and faculty is at the end of this email.
How might the seminar "Building Sustainable Local Economies" help initiate
action in your community?
1. Attend the seminar yourself, becoming a resource for the development of a
strong local economy at home.
2. Recommend and sponsor a community leader or promising young activist who
will return to your community with the energy and ideas for catalyzing
discussions and new initiatives.
3. Support the educational programs of the E. F. Schumacher Society,
assuring that we can continue providing training to new generations of
people seeking an economy embedding ecological and social values
(https://www.smallisbeautiful.org/donation_form.html).
Who should attend? Anyone interested in new and alternative models for
economic revitalization of their local economy. Register soon, as space is
limited to 25 participants!
Seminar Costs:
The tuition fee is $600.00, which includes tuition, materials, and seven
meals (4 lunches, 3 dinners). The lunches feature food from local farms.
Please reserve as soon as possible using the printable or online
registration form available at our website
(http://www.smallisbeautiful.org). Or in a return email, request
registration material by mail.
The housing fee is $400.00, which includes breakfast and 4 nights housing in
a single dorm room with shared bath at Simon's Rock College. Simon's Rock
is conveniently located in Great Barrington, and is the site of our evening
sessions.
This year, even if you cannot attend, you are invited to become a part of
the learning experience with the participants by joining us for Joseph
Stanislaw's pubic lecture, "Energy: Global is Local." An expert on
international energy issues, he will lead us through an examination of a new
locally-scaled energy economy. The event will take place on Thursday, May
22nd at 7:30 pm at the First Congregational Church of Great Barrington, MA.
Tickets are five BerkShares/Dollars at the door.
More information on the E. F. Schumacher Society, the 2008 "Building
Sustainable Local Economies" seminar, the public lecture event, and an
online registration and donation form are available at
http://www.smallisbeautiful.org.
Sincerely,
Michael Gordon, Susan Witt, Sarah Hearn, Chris Lindstrom,
Chad Nicholson, Amalia Feld, Jennifer Goodwillie, and Beeta Jahedi
Staff and Interns of the E. F. Schumacher Society
140 Jug End Road
Great Barrington, MA 01230
http://www.smallisbeautiful.org
Board of Directors: Jessica Brackman, Starling Childs, Merrian Fuller,
Hildegarde Hannum, Eric Harris-Braun, Constance Packard, Joseph Stanislaw,
Nancy Jack Todd, and Charles Turner.
Board of Founders: Ian Baldwin, David Ehrenfeld, Satish Kumar, John
McClaughry, and Kirkpatrick Sale.
Advisory Board: Tanya Berry, Thomas Berry, Wendell Berry, Lisa Byers, Olivia
Dreier, Hazel Henderson, Wes Jackson, Amory Lovins, John McKnight, David
Orr, Michael Shuman, Cathrine Sneed, Lewis Solomon, John Todd, Greg Watson,
Barbara Wood, and Arthur Zajonc.
* * * * * * * * * *
Seminar Workshops
E. F. Schumacher's Philosophy of Small is Beautiful: The philosophy
underlying the work of building strong regionally-based economies, shaped by
the democratic participation of citizens with discussion of the evolution of
this concept through the programs of the E. F. Schumacher Society.
Community Land Trust Model: Using the community land trust model as a means
to creating affordable access to land for housing and other purposes while
ensuring equity in the buildings for the owners; including legal structure
and visits to community land trust sites.
Community Development Financing Systems & Local Currencies: Creating wealth
on a regional level through self-financing, micro-credit and local currency,
using Deli-Dollars, Berkshire Farm Preserve Notes, SHARE Micro-credit, and
BerkShares as examples.
Community Self-Management & Diversification of Wealth: How a community can
become a "social entrepreneur" and the role that producer/consumer
associations can play in establishing new business initiatives and community
accountability, with an examination of the Mondragon worker-ownership model
from the Basque region of Spain.
Developing Action Plans: Presentations by participants of how they plan to
apply the tools for community economic development they have studied in the
training session to the problems faced by their own communities.
Faculty:
Eric Harris-Braun is chairman of the board at the E.F. Schumacher Society.
He lives in rural New York, where he is part of an intentional community.
Eric is a software developer by profession and is working on a global
platform for local currency deployment.
Elizabeth Keen & Alex Thorp are the owners and operators of Indian Line Farm
on land leased from the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires.
Indian Line Farm, located in South Egremont, MA, is one of the first
Community Supported Agriculture farms in the US. In addition to farming and
raising two children, Elizabeth is a founding board member of Berkshire
Grown, serves on the Great Barrington Farmers Market Steering Committee, and
has lived and worked in Central America with Witness For Peace; and Al
serves as president of the board of the Community Land Trust and is also a
registered professional engineer.
Chris Lindstrom organized the Society's June 2004 conference, "Local
Currencies in the Twenty-First Century: Understanding Money, Building Local
Economies, Renewing Community," which brought together currency theorists
and activists from 17 countries. Chris is a founding board member of
BerkShares local currency program.
Kirkpatrick Sale has the Irish gift for words, but he combines it with the
disciplined research needed to effectively make his case. His classic work
"Human Scale" examines the impact of size throughout human history and
institutions. It is the natural companion to Schumacher's "Small Is
Beautiful."
Joe Stanislaw is founder of the advisory firm JA Stanislaw Group, LLC,
specializing in strategic thinking, sustainability, and environmentally
sound investment in energy and technology. He is an independent Senior
Advisor to Deloitte & Touche USA LLP’s Energy & Resources Group. Dr.
Stanislaw was one of three founders of Cambridge Energy Research Associates
in 1983 and served as managing director for non-U.S. activity until 1997
when he was named president and later CEO. He is an adjunct professor in
the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke
University, where he is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Nicholas
Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. He co-authored with Daniel
Yergin the book "The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy."
Chuck Turner has been a Boston City Councilor since 1999, well known for
challenging education inequality, discrimination, neighborhood
gentrification, and the war in Iraq. He has championed and been actively
involved with cooperatives and worker-owned enterprises, a leader for many
years at the Industrial Cooperative Association (now the ICA Group). Chuck
recently sponsored a resolution asking the Mass Congressional Delegation to
seek policies that lead to a withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan
as well as policies that put a larger share of our federal dollars into
domestic priorities that benefit the people of Boston and the United States.
The resolution passed 8 to 3.
Susan Witt has served as executive director of the E. F. Schumacher Society
in Great Barrington, Massachusetts since its founding in 1980. She created
the SHARE micro-credit program, founded the Community Land Trust in the
Southern Berkshires, administers the BerkShares local currency program, and
actively serves her local community.
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