Ann Arbor Winter 2012 Reskilling Festival

Jan 9, 2012

a2reskilling.com is our new website!

Go to our new website a2reskilling.com to see all the sessions for the 2012 Festival coming up on February 4th, 10am-4pm!

Nov 28, 2011

Call for Presenters - Winter ReSkilling Festival 2012

Hello!

We are excited to announce the Ann Arbor Winter ReSkilling Festival and are again seeking enthusiastic volunteer presenters to share their skills. Mark your calendars for Saturday, February 4th, 2012. Registration will begin at 9:30am and presentations will run from 10am-4pm at the Rudolf Steiner High School, 2230 Pontiac Trail, Ann Arbor, 48105.

Do you have a sustainable skill or effort that you can share? Please submit your session through this online form. Please forward the link to friends who may also be interested. There are many different presentation types possible - from hour-long, hands-on sessions to 6-minute "Minis" (mini presentations) in a lunch hour TEDx-like format!

The deadline for session proposals is WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4th. In the interest of firming up the schedule in a timely fashion, please do not send proposals later than this date. (And please email or call me if questions/problems with the online submission system.) We will be in contact with you in early January or sooner to confirm the scheduling of your event. If you have multiple sessions to propose, please submit one at a time through the online survey system.

Some *reskills* of interest may be: Planning and preparing your garden, winter survival skills, knitting, sock darning, yoga, soup-making, winterizing your bike commute, spinning with a drop spindle, hoop houses, indoor games and activities for children, music making, identifying trees in the winter, how to make kombucha, neighborhood connections, campfire cooking, wood carving, meditation...the possibilities are endless!
FYI, link to our July 2011 ReSkilling Festival to give you an idea of the event:
http://a2reskill.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lolo730/sets/

We look forward to working with you!

Rebecca Streng - ReSkilling Festival Organizing Team rebecca.streng@gmail.com
734-846-8024 (c)

Sep 2, 2011

Upcoming ReSkilling Wednesday Sessions!

For September 2011: Meditation and Mending Your Own Clothes...
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MEDITATE TO REGENERATE
Wednesday, September 14, 7:30 - 9:00pm at Rudolph Steiner High School
Gaining a connection with our inner self is the first step of a successful meditation practice. The presentation will guide the audience through the steps of becoming connected with the Spirit through the ancient self-realization process of Natha Yogis in India, called Sahaja. After the meditative experience, Vic will share information on how to continue learning through options of online courses and local meditation meetups.

Vic Divecha
Vic has been conducting meditation workshops in Ann Arbor, Detroit burbs and Windsor. He has arranged free-of charge retreats, meditation courses and seminars for encouraging self-sustaining meditation practices. He co-authored has authored seven meditation CDs, which are made available at no cost to participants as mp3 downloads or online listening.

(More about my group: http://greatlakesmeditation.org. Meditation CD Co-Authored: Disc 1 http://www.meditatewith.us/first/i/. More about the meditation: http://sahajameditation.com/)
Additionally, here is a testimonial from James, one of the attendees at the summer meditation meetings in 2010:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpUsJ70kgrs
And some "what is this meditation about" type videos:
http://www.youtube.com/sahajameditation

RSVP HERE

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MENDING YOUR OWN CLOTHES
Wednesday, September 28, 7-8:30pm at 716 Hiscock St, Ann Arbor, MI 48103

I will teach the most basic hand stitch for mending, the backstitch. It is used for sewing two pieces of cloth together and looks like the stitch made by a machine. We will also cover needle handling, threading, and knotting skills. More specifically, we will focus on your own mending projects, so bring something that needs mending and you'll gain practical experience mending your own clothes. This session will be hosted out of my home, so there will be additional materials to meet your mending needs! This session is limited to 6 people, so please RSVP at

Donna Estabrook I learned my homemaking skills from my mother and my aunt. Their mother, who married in 1909, did just about everything "from scratch." She made clothing for herself, my grandfather and her 5 children. She had a yeast culture going constantly for making bread. She cooked on a wood stove. On and on. I have inherited, through my mother and aunt, some of these skills. Basic hand sewing is an extremely useful skill. It can save you money and is also satisfying to be able to mend that dress or shirt and wear it again. Not for women only!

RSVP HERE

Jul 15, 2011

How to get there and what to bring!

Wondering about logistics? See this post from our Winter festival that sums it up! We look forward to seeing you there!

Jul 9, 2011

SCHEDULE RELEASE!

What does the Summer 2011 Festival look like?!?!?
See the full day-long event schedule here!

Notice that session links are clickable from this schedule. A list of the sessions is also provided below. We look forward to seeing you soon for an awesome day of reskilling fun...

Primitive Wilderness Living Skills

Participants will see demonstrations on a range of skills such as thatching (roofs, shelters), a plant identification, and hand-drill fire starting.

Jason Hogans / New Culture Earthskills

I have been studying and practicing wilderness living skills for about seven years. I wish I could walk into the woods and never have to leave! Teaching wilderness living skills gives me goosebumps and I wish I was doing it full-time. I started to study and practice after realizing that our modern way of life has a much shorter life span than I'd previously thought, but now it's just what I love to do. There's something incredibly satisfying about being in touch with the natural world around me and knowing how to meet my needs with what it offers freely.

Connecting to the Earth - Traditional Processing of Maple Sugar

Maple sugar was once THE natural sweetner, and was produced in great quantities by the Potawatomi in lower Michigan. Sugar is made by boiling down maple sap past the syrup stage and then stirring it in large wooden troughs. At this workshop we will make maple sugar using traditional techniques. Maple sugar will be available for purchase at the workshop.

Barb Barton (Where the Wild Foods Grow/Great Lakes Lifeways Institute)

Barb Barton is a singer/songwriter and endangered species biologist and who lives with her beagle Tiny on Lansing’s Northside. She has harvested wild foods since she was a child and practices and promotes traditional harvesting and processing methods. She has been involved in the conservation of wild rice since 2007 and is a member of the Native Wild Rice Coalition, and she is active in a regional effort to assess, restore and preserve wild rice in Michigan. Barb has served as co-instructor and outreach coordinator for numerous wild rice camps in Michigan. For her efforts, Barb was awarded the 2009 Cultural Diversity Award from MSU Extension. Barb also has five CDs and performs contemporary folk music in the Great Lakes region.

Jul 7, 2011

Discovering Detail, Magic and Beauty in Nature through Sketching and Drawing

A heightened interest in details of nature. Things that you've been looking at but never really saw will come to life with new appreciation for the natural world and its inhabitants.

Please bring a sketchbook, pen and pencil or use our clipboard and paper.

Riccardo Capraro (Rudolf Steiner High School & Talking Colors Art Studio)

Riccardo grew up in Michigan and lives with his family on a 150 year old farm in Howell. He is self taught and has been working as a professional artist since high school. He is known for extreme detail and realism and finding beauty in the tiniest aspects of nature. He loves taking the extra time to rediscover the often overlooked and unseen gifts of Mother Nature.

Landscape Painting in Tempera

Play with color, learn new techniques and enjoy new ways of seeing, for ages 6 to 106. Also learn ways to enjoy paper, brush and simple colors that you can use to add dimension to your local vacation. All materials provided, no experience necessary.

Elena Townsend (Rudolf Steiner High School & Talking Colors Art Studio)

Elena grew up and received her training in the arts in Russia. She has taught for 13 years at RSHS and brings fun and inspiration to creating art and new ways to look at the world around you.

Connecting to the Earth - Traditional Processing of Wild Rice

Wild Rice (Manoomin) is a nutritious grain that was once widely harvested in Michigan by the Anishinaabe people. The Traditional knowledge of harvesting, processing, and re-seeding is now being taught at wild rice camps across the Great Lakes Region. At our demonstration wild rice camp, participants will learn about the cultural and ecological significance of wild rice, how to craft ricing sticks from cedar, parch, dance, and winnow the rice, and understand how rice is harvested. Wild rice will be available for purchase at the camp.

Barb Barton (Where the Wild Foods Grow/Great Lakes Lifeways Institute)

How to make sure your Home & Family are Healthy, Comfortable, & Energy Wise!

There is a lot of confusion about how to have a healthy, comfortable, & energy efficient home. The seminar will provide the skills on what to watch out for and what to include in analyzing one's home. They will gain a much better understanding of home health & safety issues plus what it takes for comfort & energy efficiency. We will also talk about Net Zero Deep Green homes right here in Ann Arbor where the homeowner pays nothing for their utility bills. In some cases the utility company actually pays them. Imagine that! Meadowlark Energy based right here in Ann Arbor has been named Michigan's 2011 Green Leader. Gary M. Kade is their director of Energy Innovation.

Gary M. Kade (Meadowlark Energy)
Gary, a licensed building sincer 1982, has completed over a thousand custom sunroom building projects using cutting edge enery saving techniques long before it was popular to do so. Today, he specialized in Energy Auditing, making homes more comfortable and saving homeowners lots of money on their energy costs.

Real, Raw Kombucha at Home

Learn how easy it is to make raw, probiotic kombucha (fermented tea) in your own home. In this session you will learn the basic procedures for making kombucha and techniques for changing the flavor and texture of your tea. Also, you will learn about the history and the health benefits of drinking kombucha. You will see the process of making kombucha, get to sample pre-prepared kombucha, and walk away with your own SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast) from this session to start your own batch. Please bring your own glass jar (pint- to quart-sized with a wide mouth) to transport your SCOBY home (you will also need a half-gallon-sized container for the fermentation process at home).

Andrew Sereno

I work as a fractal engineer at Ann Arbor's Biotectix during the day and transform into a permie at night. I love barefoot living, raw food eating, and forest gardening.

Hand-Tying a Quilt

Come and help hand tie a quilt and learn how to do it in the process! It might be helpful to bring a thimble.

Blanche Price

Living in Transition

All of us are impacted by the "long emergency" as we face the challenges of finite natural resources, economic instability, and climate change. How can we live with this awareness without feeling overwhelmed? How can we find resilience and courage? In this session, we will share what is in our hearts about the state of our planet. Drawing on the work of Joanna Macy, we'll explore ways to overcome psychic numbing and release energy for creative action.

As a way to enter into the challenges of the "long emergency," participants will hear a brief introduction about the Transition Towns concept that spurred ReSkilling efforts in Ann Arbor. Additionally, participants will learn some basic ideas behind the Transition Movement, and experience the power of simple paired conversations.

Laura Smith & Jeanne Mackey

Laura is a commercial interior designer, novice gardener, and generally
concerned citizen. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Architecture and Environmental Psychology at the University of Michigan, and has been volunteering on the initiating team of Transition Ann Arbor since May 2009.

Jeanne is a co-founder of Transition Ann Arbor, and recently created a program of original stories and songs on the occasion of turning 60.

Making Herbal Shampoo

Participants will learn how to brew the herbs and add the ingredients to make a fabulously simple shampoo. Recipe cards will be available. For $4, participants can make their own mix to take home. (Save a dollar by brining your own container).

Laura Smith

Laura is a commerical interior designer, novice gardener, and generally concerned citizen. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Architecture and Environmental Psychology at the University of Michigan, and has been volunteering on the initiating team of Transition Ann Arbor since May 2009. She learned to make her own shampoo from a reskilling festival 2 years ago, and has been doing it ever since!

Preserving Fruits and Vegetables through Canning

Participants will learn the basics of canning fruits and vegetables, which includes: materials and equipment needed, steps and hands on practice for preparing the fruit or vegetable, canning jars and the hot water bath.

Wendy and Arika

Wendy and Arika both work for Growing Hope in Ypsilanti, and are passionate about life quality through gardening and healthy food access. Wendy organizes groups around sustainable gardening, and Arika is in charge of outreach and volunteers. Both want to share the basics about canning vegetables and fruits for first timers. Wendy first learned to can at a reskilling festival 2 years ago.

Human Power-Practical Solutions for Daily Needs

Participants will be exposed to a variety of devices that have been created to utilize human power for practical applications such as grinding, pumping, blending, and beyond. They will receive a list of sources to plan and assemble their own human-powered devices at home.

Barry Wauldron

Barry Wauldron teaches geography at U of M - Dearborn and holds a Masters in Urban Planning from EMU. His primary interest is facilitating the transition to a post-carbon lifestyle that is more secure, sustainable, and rewarding than cheap energy consumerism. A cyclist, gardener and former mechanic, Barry believes the best future energy source is us! and has explored effective ways to employ human power to meet many of our practical needs.

Jul 5, 2011

Event Schedule Coming Soon!

Please hang tight for a few more days while we cinch up the FINAL event schedule! Check again at the end of the week for a detailed schedule of the day's events. We have a great line-up of presenters, and can't wait to share it with you!

Seeking Volunteers

We are seeking a volunteer corps for the July 16th festival. Can you donate an hour of your time? We will need help with set-up, registration desk, and clean-up on the day of the festival. Your help is much appreciated! Please let us know your availability and email address through this poll.

Contact Laura Smith for questions (lolo730@yahoo.com), and mucho thanks!

Jun 30, 2011

Green Hand Reskilling

In the Green Hand Reskilling Initiative, community members advertise their availability to share skills and ideas to promote resilient local economy and community cohesion through the posting of a Green Hand sign. Signs will be made of salvaged scrap sign material donated by a local sign manufacturer.

This presentation and workshop will multiply the effect of all the other workshops by focusing on "pay it forward"-style sharing of all that event participants learn within their respective communities. Participants will be introduced to the Green Hand concept and create physical Green Hand signs to take with them.

Clifford Dean Scholz (Green Hands Reskilling Initiative)

A longtime gardener and environmental educator, Cliff Scholz is active in Transition Oakland County and is the founder of the Green Hand Reskilling Initiative. He has presented on Peak Oil and climate change, as well as energy conservation and renewable energy for Michigan audiences ranging from preschool to university-level, and is now focused on practical action in community building and skill sharing.