Eastward mini-tour report - late Sept. - early Oct.

Hello!

As some of you know, I made an attempt to do an east coast tour in late September, which was cut short by an opportunity to head to British Columbia for the Impact Economy Summit. I'll write a separate post on that but for now, a report on the eastward jaunt...

Well, first I'll back up to the Monday before I left, September 21, when the Community Response Team held a panel meeting to address the problem of police shootings in our neighborhood. It's relevant here because action like this factors into our ideas about a Mutual Aid Network for the Creative Destruction of the US Prison Industrial Complex. You can read more about that here.

A few days later I drove to Yellow Springs Ohio where I was asked to present a workshop on timebanking and Mutual Aid Networks at the Arthur Morgan Institute's Community Solutions conference, Climate Crisis Solutions: Tools for Transition.

Saturday morning Kat Walter and I did a workshop to show how timebanking can work and then brainstorm about local applications.

After that I headed to my sister Gwynne and niece Ariel's house in Dayton. I visited the great arts magnet school where Gwynne teaches art, Stivers, Gwynne and I watched the blood moon eclipse from her back deck, we all chatted about Ariel's really cool ideas about how to use timebanking to help bring a grocery store to a food desert, and had a good and relaxing time.

I went back to Yellow Springs on September 29 to do a workshop on Mutual Aid Networks. That was cool. We mainly focused on how to start timebanking effectively, how we can apply it to solve problems or build community capacity, and how the framework of Mutual Aid Networks can take it all farther. And my sister generously offered to help me with drawing in the future... :)

That evening I drove to my parents' house in Akron and had a short but sweet visit with them the next day.

Then jaunted to Kent to have dinner with the wonderful Abby Greer of Crooked River Alliance of TimeBanks. Then played a show the TimeBank hosted at the Stone Tavern. That was tons of fun! and I somehow failed to take any pictures there...

Next day drove 7 hours to New York to play a show at Caffe Vivaldi. On a beautiful grand piano. A really cool crew showed up including Alessandra whom I'd recently met at Giftival in Rome, Mashi Blech the timebank goddess of NYC, Eric and Annie who had come to the MAN Up summit, dear old friends Tracy and Sabrina and Ignacio (new old friend), friends of friends and a handful of strangers (or whatever the kids are calling them these days).

I stayed up late with Sabrina, then got up the next day to drive 2 hours to see Kathy Perlow, Hasshan and Janelle of the Lehigh Valley MAN pilot. I got to hear Hasshan and Janelle's vision for building this wellness and justice-oriented community capacity development project, based in a federally qualified health center. It's really cool! You'll get a chance to learn more about it soon as we bring all our pilot sites online in a visible way, coming soon (November).

After that I drove as quickly as I could back across the country to Chicago, where I got to see my great friends Ann, Barry and Hannah, and see the play they've all been working on, MERCHILD, at 16th Street Theater in Berwyn. See it this weekend (last chance!) if you live anywhere near there! Very powerful.

and flew out early the next morning for Whistler, British Columbia, for the Impact Economy Summit. Which I'll write about next...