Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Another amazing day at the 2010 Natl Coho Conference

[Craig Ragland (craigragland]

Ok, that's enough from this &%#* keyboard, part 3 will wait until I get back
to campus, where my "real keyboard" sits all atwitter in anticipation of my
loving touch. Of course I will also be pulled in many directions by many
people as soon as I enter the Engineering Building.

Craig Ragland - sent via phone with slow keyboard

On Jun 19, 2010 7:06 AM, "Craig Ragland" <craigragland [at] gmail.com> wrote:

(Oops... I "fat-fingered" this little keyboard and hit Send accidently)

Part 2

This is not the right forum or medium to share this planning work broadly.
Those at the conference can stop by the Coho/US table at this morning's
Exhibit Frenzy to pick up a summary of the Board's Strategic Plan, which
will be published in its entirety soon.

Suffice it to say that Lisa's speech was inspiring as she laid out our
ambitions as we plan to help take our Cohousing Movement to the next level.
I am so proud of what this board has accomplished in this planning work and
am thrilled to being a part of the growing energy, the People Power, that it
will help mobilize.

Lisa then introduced Jim Leach, our Conference Chair. Jim, who is quite a
fine speaker as well, shared "The Forest View." Those of us on the
Conference Team have enjoyed hearing Jim's Forest View "essays" at each of
our weekly planning meetings over the last year. Jim spoke of our "rag-tag"
efforts to organize over the last 20 years and quoted many good thinkers,
including Winston Churchill and Zev Paiss (former Coho/US Exec. Dir). I was
so grateful that he spoke his truth, though doing so did ruffle a few
feathers. He has coached me privately that its easier to get away with this
as you become an elder and are less vulnerable to the reactions of others.

Jim is an exceptional leader and I've learned a lot by working at his side.
I'll make sure that his words get out broadly.

Jim then introduced board member Diane Margolis, who managed to snare Bill
McKibben as our Keynote Speaker. Diane delivered a lovingly crafted speech
that lauded Bill and provided a strong context and platform for Bill's
speech. She spoke of his many accompishments as an writer who has touched
millions in profound ways, as an educator, and perhaps most importantly, as
an activist. Bill founded 350.org, the highly influential non-profit that
mounted the largest ever political action in Oct-09. Diane was so eloquent
and I so appreciated the qualities of her work (althogh she did poke fun at
me a couple of times for my efforts to limit her remarks to 5 minutes).

After Diane's remarks, the lights dimmed and a video began showing on the
left screen, along side a slide showing Bill and the name of his address.

This video was a superbly edited work that included a video of Bill recorded
in the common house of Hearthstone Cohousing, an animation from 350.org,
stills from the same, stock footage of farmers markets, and original video
collected at a party this past Wednesday at Silver Sage Cohousing. Alan, who
lives at Silver Sage, created this fine piece of work and has been a real
delight to work with.

The Bill McKibben video was powerful. It accomplished just what I had hoped
as it pulled people into the importance of coming together to turn the
mighty machine our species has created as we civilized and have expressed
our dominium ov

Craig Ragland - sent via phone with slow keyboard

On Jun 19, 2010 6:09 AM, "Craig Ragland" <craigragland [at] gmail.com> wrote: Hi
all, We managed to p...

> > On Jun 18, 2010 7:28 PM, "PattyMara Gourley" <pmgourley [at] gmail.com>
wrote: > > > Craig, > Thank ...

> > > > Today, the 2010 National Cohousing Conference opened with a
wonderful > featured presentati...

> www.pattymara.1000markets.com > > Our cohousing home is for sale: >
http://tncoho.com/available/1...

> > _________________________________________________________________
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