Community and personal resilience begins with you. Be prepared for when the lights go out and the grid goes down. Practical, educational and attitude skills to survive and actually help your family or neighbor in the event of major disasters, when the usual industrial infrastructure is off-line, for shorter or longer times. Basic tactics and tools for owning your own light and electric, no matter what the circumstance. Applicable for individuals and small community groups, no matter the disaster situation or social breakdown.

Presented By: Chaz Peling

Join us for a panel discussion on the future of the intentional communities movement. Where have we been, what is happening now, and how do we imagine the role of intentional communities into the future? Learn from community founders and network leaders. Bring your questions to this exploratory conversation.

Presented By: Cynthia Tina

This experiential and interactive workshop will have you learn about, experience, and embody the “New Masculine.” We will cover powerful perspectives and frames that will give you access to new ways of seeing and experiencing yourself, being in relationship to your growth, and expanding your potential for leadership and influence in your family, communities, the world. You will leave the workshop with tools, processes, and structures that will directly impact your confidence, embodiment, influence, purpose, direction, and level of communication, that will radically alter the way you live and express yourself.

Presented By: John Taylor

Remembering how to be in relationship to all of life, human and more-than-human, is no small task in a time of distress and disconnection. In this workshop, we will explore how to come back into meaningful connection with others through dialogue, experiential practices, and small group explorations in order to create a sturdy foundation to rise from. By tapping into our bodies innate wisdom, we will re-member the power of being with one another, creating the connections that will restructure the world.

Presented By: Tayla Ealom

Collaboration is happening! Explore new collaborative potential within our regenerative movement. GENNA Alliance is a growing platform of individuals and organizations for a thriving communities network in North America. Five organizations have partnered to reimagined the Commons for practical application – shared agreements, resources, projects, and technology. Learn how you can engage, explore similar initiatives around the world, and network with fellow participants during this interactive session.

GENNA Alliance initial partners: Global Ecovillage Network (GEN), Foundation for Intentional Community (FIC), VillageLab, NuMundo, NextGENNA

Presented By: Cynthia Tina

GREEN ACRES PERMACULTURE VILLAGE is a small, retrofit, intergenerational intentional community in a core suburban college town neighborhood that integrates self-knowledge and expression with a shared culture among humans and the living Earth to encourage abundance on every level.

Presented By: Ann Kreilkamp

Matthew Anthony Stephens was born in Beverly on Chicago’s South Side. While the Windy City has not typically been the first place one would think of with regards to permaculture and urban sustainability, up until now, anyway, Matthew is doing his part to change that. As founder of the Earth Reforestation Project, Permaculture America, and Permaculture Chicago, Matthew has done forums for students at his alma mater, Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, and conducted after school mentoring programs about sustainability, design, and permaculture. Here he has been able to effectively put into practice his seven years of teambuilding, along with his study of urban food deserts and the nutritional dilemmas in urban environments that ensue from such designations.

Today, in addition to his work as a local community organizer in Chicago’s historic Hyde Park neighborhood on the city’s South Side, Matthew works with the Unitarian Universalist Church on garden maintenance and design consultation where he counts to his credit putting in a low-maintenance shade garden with swales. This fits right in with his study of passive solar architecture—a passion since 1987—and his practice of indoor gardening since 2011. He’s the proud archivist of the work of Lee Porter Butler, creator of the double envelope passive solar house design, and America’s pioneering passive solar architect of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s last century.

Placing exclusivity on the importance of neighborhood living, Matthew travels only by foot or bicycle and does not take public transit out of protest for safety and environmental conditions, concerns, and service quality. He has boycotted AT&T and Comcast since 2011 and Big Oil since 2010.

Matthew Stephens is one of the founders and the designer of Hales Franciscan Food Forest, Chicago’s First Urban Food Forest in 2014.

2016 Convergence Workshop: Community Organizing for Urban Permaculture

Tara Marchant is re-defining herself, like many others, in the emerging Green paradigm. As the Local Director for Emerald Cities Bay Area – Oakland Council, Tara is working across a host of stakeholder organizations (public, labor, community and industry and workforce development) to bring a collective effort to retrofit our urban core. In doing so, create high road job and build our democracy, reduce energy use and direct investments to our local communities. Tara also created and was the program manager of the Green Assets Program at the Greenlining Institute, where alliances, advocates and elected officials contributed to California’s Climate legislation AB 32: an ambitious climate framework for pricing Green House Gases (GHGs) and pricing carbon.  She holds a permaculture credential, and longs for a big garden to produce food and develop urban food systems that are sustainable.

Tara graduated from Yale University with a degree in Theater. Her first love was performing. Yes, as a little girl, she sang, and twirled and made up songs.  As she explores what her expanding role is in healing of Pachamama, she recognizes that it involves music and song and narrative: which are universal and necessary for the health of the human ‘body’ on this planet called earth.

2016 Convergence Workshop: Music of the Movement – Singing our Community into Life (Circle Songs Around the Fire) 

Come gather around the fire, and let the richness of the day’s events and learning integrate and resonate in song!  Music builds community, and is essential to carrying a movement forward!  What are the songs for our time, and how can we use music to catalyze our communities, create unity, uplift hearts and build our movements?  Composer and singer Ysaye Barnwell teaches that in the African-American tradition, every song has a purpose and that songs are the backbone of building community.  We will share simple songs that you can sing and teach to others, and will invite you to share your songs also.  

Presented By: Tara Marchant, Katia Sol, Christopher Kuntzsch

Saturday, September 17th | 7:45 – 8:45 PM | Fire Pit (Hops Tipi)

This three hour workshop has been designed as an opportunity to dive deep and face off with our own need and longing for alliance with one another across the lines of privilege and power. Join us for the brave work of deconstructing the social obstacles that block our ability to work with one another, and re-creating a world where we all can live with dignity.  This  experiential workshop will include small and large group dialogues, somatic exercises for deepening our capacity to work with challenging material and stay centered, and the opportunity to explore embodied strategies for building strong and flexible bridges between us.

Presented by: Amikeayla Gaston, Rachel Kaplan, Wanda Stewart

Saturday September 17th | 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM | Mediterranean Garden

The Commons is a documentary film about communities all over the world re-asserting sustainable, responsible futures using ancient Commons principles. The Commons are the shared resources of the world, owned by all, not just a few. The Commons are an ancient-new open-source code around the sharing of resources.

Five years in the making, we listened as 49 communities in the Americas, Europe and south Asia told us what has made their Commons work over the centuries. In the face of commodification and privatization, when everything seems to have a dollar value, Commoners are now saying, we’re taking a new path forward… http://commonsfilm.com/

Presented By: Bunker Seyfert

Thursday, September 15th | 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM | Yurt

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Anthony Singing Bear is a stylistic singer-songwriter weaving wise words and personal stories into jazzy swing, world beat, reggae, hip hop and soul. His popularity is in large part due to his conscious well-thought lyrics, inventive songwriting, and soulful emotive voice. Bear’s prolific garden of songs seem developed and timeless like something out of the archives, and yet his ever evolving repertoire is very much here and now. It is a unique brand of music, in the style of John Mayer, Jason Mraz, and Brett Dennen, but really defying all genre classifications. 

2016 RED Talk Presentation: TBD

2016 Convergence Performance: Saturday, September 17th | 6:00 – 6:45 PM | Main Stage

2016 Convergence Panel: Artists In Action 

James Gore is a Sonoma County native who was born in Healdsburg and raised in the 4th District. The Gore family has deep roots in Sonoma County’s community and has been in the Bay Area for 6 generations. James’ father partnered in founding a successful vineyard management company, and his mother worked as dental assistant in Cloverdale, Healdsburg and Santa Rosa.

James won election in 2014 as County Supervisor for Northern Sonoma County’s 4th District. He passionately represents more than 100,000 residents in this beautiful region where he was born and raised – and now raises his own family.

His District includes the premium wine grape growing regions of Alexander Valley, Dry Creek Valley, Knights Valley, and much of the Russian River Valley. The Geysers, Lake Sonoma, and much of the Russian River itself also reside in the 4th district, along with the communities of Healdsburg, Windsor, Cloverdale, Northwest Santa Rosa, Fulton, Geyserville, and Larkfield/Wikiup.

Prior to his election as County Supervisor, James was a White House Appointee in Washington DC. Most recently he served as the Assistant Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

2016 Convergence Panel: Government Panel 

Allies and Assets is about making use of existing social, community and built infrastructure for taking permaculture further to the mainstream. The presentation will describe a variety of city programs, community entities, built infrastructure found in almost any town or city, that can be used to advance the ideals of permaculture. The presenter will explain real life examples from the Pacific Northwest for building bridges – neighborhood associations, mapping your neighborhood, bike tours, front yard gardens, suburban permaculture convergence, faith communities, place making and more. Presenter Jan Spencer, has had extensive experience with this subject.

Presented By: Jan Spencer

Saturday, September 17th | 11:40 AM – 12:00 PM | Solar Panel: EL Sol

Troy Horton of Town and City Permaculture. Is a grass-roots permaculture practitioner based in Oakland, CA. He has a strong focus on introducing “inner-city youth” and their communites to permaculture.
He has organized and held a previous permaculture diversity talk/event, along with being a constant student of permaculture and completed several PDC’s.

TBA

The Third Ethic: Practicing Fair Share Permaculture

Sasha Shankar is the president of Town and City Permaculture.

TBA

The Third Ethic: Practicing Fair Share Permaculture

Town and City Permaculture will put on an interactive workshop. About how diversity helps permaculture truly realize it’s expressed ethics. We will delve into, how can we design. For inclusivity within the permaculture movement.

Our workshop will be interactive. It is relevant to Building Resilient Communities and permaculture. In the way that we will be focusing. On how to bring POC, food workers, migrant workers, and other under represented folks. To the permaculture table for a much needed pow wow.

Presented By: Troy Horton and Sasha Shankar

Dave Hage is a Co-Founder of the Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education, and he is a facilitator for the WE Immersion 9-month program. He brings a deep love of the earth, humanity, creativity, and possibility into everything he does. He is a dedicated leader and believes deeply that the work of reconnecting ourselves with our place, with each other, and with ourselves is of the utmost importance at this time.

2016 Convergence Workshop: Bird Language & Permaculture

Networking the Transformational Ecosystem consists of a number of social enterprises and non-profits (generally 15) giving 3-minute presentations in front of the participants, and then connecting with the participants directly at tables. The organizations present on who they are, what they do, what their needs are, and how you can get involved. Each round of presentations consists of 5 organizations, and rounds are broken up with "tabling/networking" rounds, where each of the presenting organizations tables for 10-15 minutes and receives interested participants who can connect directly with them about engagement opportunities with their organization.

NuMundo has presented this interactive networking event at Bioneers (USA), Lucidity Festival (USA), Boom Festival (Portugal), Envision Festival (Costa Rica), Cosmic Convergence Festival (Guatemala), as well as at co-working spaces internationally. We’re creating a container for emergent conversations, sharing new ideas, and new opportunities for creative collaboration and participation with existing organizations and attendees. This will be an inspiring, engaging and activating networking session for each of the power-house organizations involved and each participant looking for community support, projects to get involved with, or new inspirations to share!

Presented By: David Casey