2/24: Community Seed Swap

Join Cornell Cooperative Extension for the first ever Seedy Sunday in Ithaca! Bring your extra seeds to swap and share with others – they can be home-saved seeds or purchased seeds that you have in surplus. Plus talks and workshops on seed saving and community seed libraries. Free event!

Sunday February 24, 2013, 11am-3pm
CCE-Tompkins Education Center
615 Willow Avenue
Ithaca, NY

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

11:00 am – 11:30 am: Screening of the film Seeds of Freedom, featuring environmental activist Vandana Shiva The film charts the story of seed from its roots at the heart of traditional, diversity-rich farming systems across the world, to being transformed into a powerful commodity, used to monopolize the global food system. Seeds of Freedom seeks to challenge the idea that large-scale, industrial agriculture is the only means by which we can feed the world. In tracking the story of seed it becomes clear how the corporate agenda has driven the takeover of seed in order to make vast profit and control of the global food system.

11:30 am – 12:15 pm: Seed Saving for Beginners (and children!) Learn the basics of getting started with seed saving and get some hands-on experience in seed cleaning. This workshop will empower you to start saving your own seeds this year! Learn how to make Magic Seed Wands for children, and how to construct seed cleaning tools from recycled materials. Presented by Sean Dembrosky of Edible Acres http://www.edibleacres.org/index.htm

12:30 pm – 1:15 pm: Advanced Seed Saving and Selection Techniques We’ve all seen tomato blossoms turning to seed-laden fruits, but have you ever seen a parsnip or carrot plant blossom and go to seed? Come learn about biennial life cycles of root crops and the art and science (mostly the former!) of growing them on to the seed-producing stage. Learn about selection, overwintering of the first year roots, replanting in spring, flowering, seed harvesting and drying. Bring any and all questions related to seed and feel free to share what you’ve learned from your garden, as well! Presented by Petra Page-Mann of Fruition Seeds http://fruitionseeds.com/

1:30 pm – 2:15 pm: Restrictions on Saving Seed in the EU In the US, we are very fortunate that there currently are no restrictions on saving seed to sell or share with others. However, in the European Union, it’s a vastly different situation, with prohibitive registration fees and tight controls over who is allowed to produce seed. Much of this legislation has been driven by the multi-national agriculture companies in order to protect their profits and this has spurred a lively resistance movement in the EU for “Seed Sovereignty”. Presented by Chrys Gardener, CCE staff and former manager of the Irish Seed Savers Association http://www.irishseedsavers.ie/

2:30 pm – 3:00 pm: Roundtable Discussion on Seed Saving Join us for an open discussion on seed saving techniques and anything else to do with seeds! All are welcome to bring questions, tips, and ideas. Discussion leaders include experienced seed savers Tim Springston of Oxbow Farm http://www.farmhack.net/wiki/oxbow-farm, Petra Mann-Page and Matthew Goldfarb of Fruition Seeds http://fruitionseeds.com/, and Chrys Gardener, CCE staff.

11/18: Greater Ithaca Skill Share organized by Transition Tompkins

In the spirit of increasing community resilience White Hawk Ecovillage is hosting the “Greater Ithaca Skill Share” on Sunday, Nov. 18th!

The event is free and activities for children will be available and supported.

It will be semi-structured and will offer a morning session of predetermined skills and an open-space afternoon session to let our community members share a skill they love. So come prepared to learn and if you’ve got a skill to share come prepared to teach!

If you do come please make sure to bring:
– weather appropriate clothing (some activities will be outdoors)
– a water bottle
– a dish to pass
– eating ware and utensils
– cloth or clothing of natural fabric to dye (if you’re interested)
– a skill to share, if you’re feeling inspired

There is a hope to make this a recurrent event (seasonally, semi-annually or annually) and if you’re interested in seeing some other skills represented that weren’t or want to help organize future Skill Share events we’ll be gathering names and ideas for the future.

Please feel free the forward on the poster to other friends, family and listservs, there are paper copies posted around Ithaca, Danby, and Brooktondale/Caroline, also our website is updated with the event

We hope to see you for all or part of the day and if not, sometime soon down the road!

Best wishes, “Skill On, Wayne”. “Skill on, Garth”
Sam and Simone
Transition Tompkins

11/10: Fixers Collective Planning Meeting

Finger Lakes ReUse invites anyone who has things to repair, wants to help fix items, or wants to learn how to fix items to a planning meeting for our new fixers collective on November 10th at the ReUse Center at the Triphammer Marketplace, 2255 N Triphammer Road, Ithaca. The fixers collective is open to anyone who wants to prolong the lifespan of items such as home electronics, furniture, small appliances and more. The planning meeting will be 3pm to 4pm, followed by a fixer lab from 4pm to 5pm. Please fill out the fixers collective survey to let us know if you are interested in attending or in learning more.

We will meet in the Furniture Overflow Showroom (the storefront to the right of the ReUse Center) at Triphammer Marketplace.

Bring your ideas – this will be a collaborative and evolving effort and will be guided by those who are actively participating – so your thoughts and input at this first meeting will be very important, but there will be lots of opportunity to grow and improve the collective! We hope to start small but really grow this event into a vibrant community experience. One of our largest current challenges is that we have zero storage space, so projects will need to be portable – in and out each time we meet. We can offer a heated space, large work table, an assortment of tools, and internet access to research fixes, but we’ll have challenges with projects that may take more than a couple of hours to fix, etc. Feel free to bring along tools and an item that needs to be fixed. We’ll leave the last hour for repair attempts – although no guarantees that we’ll have the skillset, tools, or time to tackle your project. We’ll see! Let’s meet and talk from 3pm to 4pm, and have a fixer lab from 4pm to 5pm. Future meetings (time and frequency) will be discussed at the meeting, but will hopefully continue to evolve and expand – we’ll continue to publish updates to the full email list.

There was some interest in the initial survey responses in paying a fee to have items fixed – so one of the topics we will be considering is some sort of sliding-fee structure which will support this effort. We can give you an update on FLR job training programs and initiatives to support underserved individuals in Tompkins County.

Looking forward to seeing you Saturday!

Diane

Diane Cohen
Executive Director, Finger Lakes ReUse, Inc.

10/13: Creating a Sustainable Marketplace

Please join us for this event, which is organized by The SEEN…

What does a sustainable marketplace look like to you?

Come join us on Thursday, October 13th for a panel presentation on four innovative systems in Ithaca that facilitate local exchange:

Thursday, October 13, 5:30-8:30pm
The Space @ GreenStar
700 W. Buffalo Street, Ithaca, NY
RSVP on Swidjit

For the entry fee, we are accepting Ithaca Hours at twice their standard equivalence (typically $10 = 1 Hour), so bring your Hours!
The entry fee (to cover food & space) is:
$5 or a quarter Hour for SEEN members
$10 or a half Hour for non-members

Paul Strebel presents Ithaca Hours
Leslie Strebel presents Time Banking
Shira Golding presents Share Tompkins
Alex Colket presents Swidjit

Come learn about how new technologies are reviving traditional localized economies. Learn how you can leverage these systems for personal growth or to bolster your business.

The panel will be followed by a Community Market that draws from all four innovations and welcomes your own creative input. Let’s co-create a marketplace that builds community, enriches our lives, and strengthens the local economy.

Bring the following:
Your questions on the above topics
Your ideas about sustainable markets
Your items to trade
Your list of haves and wants
Your Ithaca Hours
Your friends

We look forward to seeing you there!

SEEN members are also invited to table at the event and sell goods and services for which they accept Ithaca Hours. If you are a SEEN member interested in tabling, reserve your spot by emailing info@TheSEEN.org.

About The SEEN
The Sustainable Enterprise & Entrepreneur Network (The SEEN) is a growing community of businesses, organizations, and individuals working together to achieve ecological, social, and financial success. Members of The SEEN bring a Triple Bottom Line perspective to the Finger Lakes regional marketplace. Their commitment to sustainable practices helps them lower risk, increase customer loyalty, and generate sustainable profitability for their businesses. They contribute to the broader community by building a strong and resilient local economy and helping to safeguard our shared future.

Aug 25: Share Tompkins Visioning Meeting

Thursday, August 25, 6-8pm
Owl Cafe Above Autumn Leaves Book Store
115 The Commons
Ithaca, New York

RSVP on Facebook

Share Tompkins has been going strong now for over two years! During that time, we’ve had an event almost every month and we have really energized local sharing culture. More and more groups are organizing swaps both in partnership with and independently of Share Tompkins and now there is a new locally-produced website called Swidjit that makes sharing and bartering online even easier for our community. Along the way, we’ve been featured in the New York Times, Yes! Magazine and Positive News and were recognized as a “Sign of Sustainability” by Sustainable Tompkins.

So what’s next? We could keep doing more of the same, but those of us who are core event organizers are getting a bit fatigued, so others would have to really step up to run these gatherings. Alternatively, we could focus more on promoting other groups’ events and perhaps organize only one or two Really Really Free Markets and/or Swaps a year. Another thing that I’d like to offer is more “meta” events in which we discuss strategies for bartering effectively and attempt to ignite more sharing groups like toolshares, resilience circles, etc.

There are, of course, lots of other things we could do. So we’re having a meeting to see where people’s energy is and move forward with a collective vision!

Please feel welcome to come and participate even if you have never been to an organizers’ meeting before!

– Shira 🙂

Meet Swidjit!

We’re very excited about this new local web platform that makes it easier to share and barter online and which has the potential to bolster our local economy. Creator Alex Colket explains…

Hello Share Tompkins,

I’m writing you today to introduce you to Swidjit, a new Ithaca-based website designed to strengthen the local economy and provide greater access to the wealth of goods, skills, and other resources that surround us. Swidjit has a commercial aspect, but it also places a strong emphasis on bartering, sharing and otherwise making it easier to survive/thrive with less dependence on money. Of course, this is something Share Tompkins has already been doing here for the last couple of years, and you should all feel proud of your role in this critical and beautiful change that is currently unfolding in places like Ithaca. The momentum you have built is one of the main reasons that Ithaca is poised to take the idea of local economy to the next level and demonstrate how a modern US community can learn to flourish within its means. Thanks!

Video: Portland’s Neighborhood Tool Sharing Libraries

Inspiration from Portland – let’s start a tool sharing library in Ithaca!

May 1: 2nd Annual Seed and Plant Swap at the Compost Fair

Our second annual Seed and Plant Swap is part of the Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Compost Fair!

Sunday, May 1, 12- 4pm
Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County
615 Willow Avenue, Ithaca, New York
RSVP on Facebook

Stop by to swap or give away seeds and plants of all kinds. Left-over seeds will be donated to the CCE Seed Bank.

While you’re at the swap, check out lots of cool displays about composting and listen to live music on a solar-powered stage.

More info about the Compost Fair:
You know the deal! The biggest compost extravaganza in the state, right here at our own CCE. There will be information and demonstrations of beginning and advanced compost techniques, continuous tours of our demonstration site, live music, activities for kids, a compost cafe AND the 4-H Duck Race. Join us!

April 23: Clothing Swap-O-Rama presented by Local First Ithaca

Local First Ithaca presents
the 1st Annual
Take Off Your Clothes For Earth Day
Clothing Swap-O-Rama!

Saturday, April 23, 10-6pm
The Space @ Greenstar
700 West Buffalo Street, Ithaca, NY

Suggested donation = $10 and a bag of clothing

Proceeds to Benefit Sew Green & GIAC’s Teen Program Poppin’ Collars

Clean out your Closets for Earth Day! Learn to upcycle old clothes into fabulous, new garments, quilts, toys, purses, etc. Attend one of the cool workshops – learn how to silkscreen, use a sewing machine, make a headband, buttons and more…

Keep clothing out of the waste stream, learn a new skill and create community. Stitch n’ Bitch, here we come!

Co-sponsored by Share Tompkins, Greenstar, Ithaca Times, Finger Lakes ReUse and Tompkins County Solid Waste

RSVP on Facebook

Post Your Haves and Wants to Our New GoGoVerde Community

Have you been wanting a way to swap and share in between our in-person events? Now you can! Join our new community on GoGoVerde to create a profile and post offers and requests. The free site allows for numerous sharing options including swapping, borrowing, renting, and free giving.

As with any community effort, it’s all about critical mass. The more of us actively using the site, the more useful it will be. So we encourage you to join and start sharing today!