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.

Teresa and Jeremy Installed a Little Free Library!

Teresa and Jeremy, active participants in the Share Tompkins community, just installed a “Little Free Library” in front of their house! It’s an awesome way to share books with your neighbors. Here’s what Teresa has to say…

Little Free Libraries

The Little Free Libraries were started in Wisconsin in late 2010 as a way of promoting literacy and community through the use of small, publically accessible book exchanges. When my husband and I recently went back to Wisconsin for a friend’s wedding, we found ourselves charmed by the variety and number of Little Free Libraries in our old neighborhood, and decided to bring a little of that magic back to Ithaca with us.

Building

We spent some time thinking about how to build a weathertight yet accessible little box, but after looking at the plans available at their website and considering our meager construction skill, we decided to buy one made from recycled materials. However, someone with more time and ability than me could certainly put one together in a weekend or two from any combination of found, recycled, or purchased materials. Most of the ones we’ve seen are about the size of a small laundry basket, with a door to keep out the elements. One of the cleverer designs I’ve seen is actually the next-nearest Library – a repurposed phone kiosk just outside Syracuse University’s Library and Information Science department. Photo here

Location

We live on a busy street with a fair amount of foot, car, and bike
traffic, so we didn’t need to look farther than our own front yard. But other libraries are located in a wide variety of public and private places – outside of businesses, homes, and schools.

Books

We’re book fiends, and always have a stack of books to be passed along to other readers. Our Little Library is new, but I hope that it will become a neighborhood resource for exchanging beloved titles.

If you’d like to browse the Library and trade some books, or if you want a library of your own and want to see it in person, please stop by 1039 Hanshaw Rd. to check it out!

7/6/12: Summer Really Really Free Market at the Congo Square Market

July 6, 2012, 4-8pm
Southside Community Center
305 S. Plain St, Ithaca, NY 14850
RSVP on Facebook

Ready to share? Come on down to the Congo Square Market to get some food, check out local vendors, and share with your neighbors! In the Share Tompkins Really Really Free Market area, everything is free!

Event partners include Southside Community Center, Ithaca Freeskool, Local First Ithaca, and Ithaca Hours.

How it works: There will be tables set up where you can drop off your stuff. All are welcome to take whatever they want on a first-come, first-serve basis. This is an opportunity to help one another meet our needs while reducing waste and helping the environment!

What to bring:
– Clothing
– Food
– Toys
– Books
– Household Items
– Plants
– Anything you want to share!

All left over items will be donated, but it will help the organizers tremendously if you plan to take home any items you bring that aren’t picked up by others.

About the Congo Square Market:
CONGO SQUARE is an actual place in new Orleans. This sacred ground was first used by Houma Native Americans and later by slaves in the region, as a place to enjoy one day of freedom. African people used this as a place to maintain a connection to their true status as free people of Africa. Native Americans, as well as Europeans often joined in the celebration. Music, abolitionist organization, food, and dance were all intertwined to make this one day a week festival. Today, we recreate our own version of this splendor at Southside Community Center. We welcome our WHOLE COMMUNITY to come enjoy food, music and culture. The Market is a collaboration between Southside Community Center, Ithaca Youth Bureau’s Paul Scheurs Memorial Program, TC Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Whole Community Project, and the Youth Farm Project.

About Really Really Free Markets from Wikipedia:
“The Really, Really Free Market (RRFM) movement is a horizontally-organized collective of individuals who form a temporary market based on an alternative gift economy.[1] The RRFM movement aims to counteract capitalism in a proactive way. It holds as a major goal to build a community based on sharing resources, caring for one another and improving the collective lives of all. Markets often vary in character, but they generally offer both goods and services. Participants bring unneeded items and food, as well as skills and talents such as entertainment or haircuts. A RRFM usually takes place in an open community space such as a public park or community commons. In practice these are not free markets at all, as heavy restrictions are placed on the trade of goods designed to prevent a practical medium of exchange from arising.”

Share Tompkins featured in The Center for a New American Dream’s “Guide to Sharing”

The Center for a New American Dream “helps Americans to reduce and shift their consumption to improve quality of life, protect the environment, and promote social justice.” Sounds like a great mission to us!

They have collaborated with one of our favorite sites, Shareable.net, to create a free PDF “Guide to Sharing” that you can download from their site. The guide is full of great tips and resources and even includes a couple of shout-outs to Share Tompkins on page 2.

12/8: Take It Or Leave It Sustainable Gift Swap

Thursday, December 8, 2011, 8am-5pm
Emerson Suite B in Campus Center at Ithaca College

RSVP on Swidjit
RSVP on Facebook

Looking for some interesting gifts for friends and family but not looking to break your bank account? Need to get rid of some stuff? Come to Ithaca College’s Take It Or Leave It sustainable gift swap, where you can do both of these things! The gift swap is brought to you by ICES (the IC Environmental Society), REMP (IC’s Resource and Environmental Management Program), and Share Tompkins.

Donate your gently used clothes, odds and ends, school supplies, kitchen supplies, books, movies, etc. to the gift swap and avoid sending it to the landfill. And rather than buying something new and increasing demand for extraction of natural resources, you may find something that one of your loved ones could really use or appreciate.

The event will be held Thursday, December 8th, from 8am – 5pm in Emerson Suite B in Campus Center at Ithaca College. Drop off your donations as early as 8am or any time throughout the day until 5pm, and browse for as long as you wish.

There will also be food (including vegan hot chocolate!), music, and fun such as face painting and hula hooping, and space to just take a break and kick back. We will also be raffling off sustainable items and gift certificates to local businesses, such as Finger Lakes ReUse and Collegetown Bagels.

This event is entirely free and open to the public. The more the merrier! For additional info and individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations contact Margaret Keating.

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.

July 22: Really Really Free Market #4 at the Congo Square Market in partnership with Significant Elements

Share Tompkins’ fourth Really Really Free Market is part of the Congo Square Market! Food, books, electronics, clothes – EVERYTHING in the RRFM area is free. Bring what you can, take what you need. The more we can provide for one another locally, the closer we are to sustainability!

Friday, July 22, 5-8pm
Southside Community Center
305 S. Plain St, Ithaca, NY

RSVP on Facebook

Photo from last year’s Congo Square Market RRFM

Guidelines:
– Please bring items that are in good condition, no junk.
– Please plan on taking back home with you any stuff you bring that is not picked up by others.

This event is hosted and co-presented by Southside Community Center. Our partner is Significant Elements, who are celebrating their 20th Anniversary with a Mega Free Friday on the 22nd and additional events (see below). Stop by their store at 212 Center Street before 5pm for even more free stuff!

ABOUT THE CONGO SQUARE MARKET
The Congo Square Market takes place 4-8pm every Friday through September 2 and features live local music & dancing, visiting with friends and vendors selling food, instruments & more. Vendor fees and fruit and vegetable stand proceeds support Southside and the Congo Square Market.

Named for the famous Congo Square in New Orleans, the market honors African-American history. In the early days of US slavery, recently enslaved African peoples and others could gather in Congo Square for music, dance, and stories. The Ithaca Congo Square Market is a project of Southside Community Center, Ithaca Youth Bureau’s Paul Scheurs Memorial Program, and Tompkins County Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Whole Community Project.

ABOUT SIGNIFICANT ELEMENTS’ 20TH ANNIVERSARY WEEKEND
Historic Ithaca launched the Significant Elements architectural salvage program in 1991 as a seasonal, all-volunteer program to keep reusable house parts and building materials out of the landfill. Today, Significant Elements is a year-round, staffed program with over 7,000 customers annually. It has grown into a community resource for materials, product and contractor recommendations, hands-on training, and professional expertise.

The 20th Anniversary Fair will celebrate reuse and the traditional building trades with two days of events at our headquarters, 212 Center Street in Ithaca’s historic Southside neighborhood:

Friday, July 22
– walking tour of the Southside and Titus Flats neighborhoods
– storewide sale
– SUPER Free Friday

Saturday, July 23
– traditional building and craft demonstrations
– “Ask the Old House Experts” Panel
– walking tours of the Southside and Titus Flats neighborhoods
– raffle
– children’s activities
– storewide sale
– junk art contest
– bake sale and refreshments
– old-timey games
– unveiling of our new Plain Street Mural

Press: Share Tompkins in Tompkins Weekly Article about Economics of Happiness Screening

On April 27th, we were invited to speak about Share Tompkins as part of the panel discussion following the community screening of the film The Economics of Happiness.

The event was featured in an article by Eric Banford in the May 2-8 issue of Tompkins Weekly. You can read the full article on the Sustainable Tompkins site and here are some key excerpts:

Share Tompkins has been hosting monthly swaps and “Really, Really Free Markets” and co-founder Shira Golding said they
have received email from all over the U.S. and as far away as the UK,
asking how to start similar ventures…

Shira Golding and McKenzie Jones-Rounds of Share Tompkins talked about real life swap examples fostered through swap meets. Jones-Round swapped for a cello that wasn’t being used for a year of
guitar lessons. She shared that, “It’s not just about the stuff we keep out of the waste stream or save money on, it’s also about instilling in the kids in the community the value of who they are and what it means to be part of something bigger than themselves. It’s good to be someplace where people aren’t just willing to share their things, but they share themselves too. We are building a resilient, self-reliant, non-monetary based economy through this.”