Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Green Festivals and cohousing

[Ann Zabaldo (zabaldo]

Fred -- for 4-5 years Mid Atlantic Cohousing had a booth at the  
Washington DC Green Festival organized by Coop America.  HUGE event,  
lots of booth traffic BUT we got very little in terms of "conversion"  
rate -- that is, no interested parties converted to "prospects" and  
ergo, no prospects converted to members.  Also it was an incredibly  
labor intensive event and it cost a LOT of money for a small  
organization such as MAC.

Increasingly, the labor fell on the shoulders of fewer and fewer  
people so this year we decided not to pursue this avenue of outreach  
but rather to concentrate on our Spring bus tour which actually makes  
money for us and to take on another event should one come up that we  
feel provides a good outreach approach to educate folks about  
cohousing. (Wow -- that's a long sentence!!)

Best --

Ann Zabaldo
Takoma Village Cohousing
Washington, DC

On Oct 14, 2008, at 10:47 AM, Fred H Olson wrote:

> Does anyone know if cohousing is represented at these Green Festivals
> (see below)?
>
> Minneapolis has a locally produced "Green Expo" each spring
> ( http://www.livinggreen.org/ ) at the state fairgrounds and some some
> cohousing presentation has often been made tho we have not had a booth
> (the main feature is many many organizational booths).  Huge numbers  
> of
> people attend, many would likely be interested in the cohousing  
> idea.  I
> have proposed setting up a mockup, scaled down cohousing community
> (using tents) on a nearby area of the fairgrounds but we have not  
> pulled
> this off yet.  Tho the huge crowds are there and some would surely  
> wonder
> over to the cohousing setup, there is already too much to take in in  
> one
> day so it is not clear how successful it would be as a cohousing  
> outreach.
> One possible theme / distinction would be that the Green Expo (and the
> regular 10 day State Fair) are human scale walking events where much
> interaction takes place but they only happen once a year.  Cohousing
> communities are human scale communities where much interaction takes  
> place
> in walking distance from home year round and many are "green" in  
> various
> ways.
>
> Green Festivals ( extracted from their web site - url below)
>
> Green Festivals are two day celebrations of what people can do to  
> promote
> healthy communities, social justice and ecological balance. Green
> Festivals, a joint project of Global Exchange and Co-op America,
> celebrate what's working in our communities for people, business and  
> the
> environment. Here, green means safe, healthy communities and a strong
> local economy. They claim to be the nation's premier sustainability
> events, where you will see the best in green.  More than 125 authors,
> leaders and educators; great how-to workshops; cutting-edge films; fun
> activities for kids; organic beer and wine; delicious vegetarian  
> cuisine
> and diverse live music.
>
> 2008 Green Festival Dates
> Seattle: April 12-13
> Chicago: May 17-18
> Washington, DC: Nov 8-9
> San Francisco: Nov 14-15-16
> http://www.greenfestivals.org
>
> Fred
>
> Note, Cohousing-L subscriber byronpatterson [at] gmail.com sent a Green
> Festival (DC) announcement but Fred reworked it into this message.
>
> --
> Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
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