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Cascadia Commons meeting on January 6th!

Collin S. Ferguson — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 21:55:08 GMT

Cascadians!

Wow, big meeting on January 6th - up to 40 people at the Madison's Grill on January 6th, 2009 at 6:15 PM. Big topics include the formation of an alliance of Land Trusts, Community Land Trusts, Watershed Councils, and the adoption of the Open Money program Community Way. Very exciting stuff that could radically change the local Pacific Northwest economy in the coming years. Hope you can join us! RSVP at cascadia.info@gmail.com.

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Doug Honours Ceremony '08

Collin S. Ferguson — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:37:06 GMT

Klahowya Cascadians,

We need to begin kicking the afterburners for Doug Honours Ceremony '08!

We need to come up with a list of nominees.

We need to know how many people want to attend.

We need to figure out our travel arrangements including overnight stay options.

We need Doug Flags.

The trip from Portland to Peace Arch Park is a 459 km (285 mi), and will take approvimately four and a half hours from Portland. The trip from Portland will likely include a stop in Seattle if anyone from there wants to join a carpool or charter bus to Peace Arch Park.

Our destination city will be Blaine, Washington. Peace Arch Park does not have any overnight options, so our best camping arrangement will likely be at Birch Bay Park (http://www.parks.wa.gov/parkpage.asp?selectedpark=Birch+Bay&pageno=2). The best, i.e. closest to Peace Arch Park hostel and motel options are at the Birch Bay Hostel and Guest House (http://www.birchbayhostel.org/) and Northwoods Motel (360-332-5603). Camping sites at Birch Bay Park are $17/night for 8 people.

How to get there is the next question. We could carpool. I have access to a minivan that could carry seven. The other option is if we have over 20 attendees to to take a charter. I sent an email to Shared Route and I am waiting to hear back from EcoShuttle. More likely than not, these charter options are going to be too expensive and will likely be more available to us at next year's Doug Honours Ceremony on September 9th, 2009. Anyway, what does everyone think? How do we get to Peace Arch Park?

Next, what about Doug Flags? Cascadia Commons has Community Outreach meetings where we could hand-make the Doug Flags since the cost of Small Flags printing 10 flags at this time is too expensive. So, we could meet either next week on the 15th to paint the flags. Other Community Outreach meetings include the July 22nd or August 5th.

Next, we need a list of nominees. There are many great themes we could work with in order to find groups. Two topics would be the "Salish Sea" name change and the "future" of Cascadia. What will Cascadia look like post-petroleum? How efficient will Cascadian life need to be? How can technology serve this new Cascadian world? The Doug Honours Ceremony will definitely function as a forum to discuss these two topics, but we also need organizations, businesses, governments, and individuals that are ahead of the curve regarding these issues.

Lastly, the Doug Honours Ceremony will function as the first meeting for the Board of Trustees of Cascadia Commons. All those interested in participating on the board and those who consider themselves founders of Cascadia Commons from wherever in Cascadia are encouraged to sign the incorporation documents.

So everyone, please take the time to read this email. Break it down, think about it, and provide answers. Time is short and time goes by quickly and August 8th, 2008 will be here any minute. Let's start planning now.

Kloshe nanitch,

Collin S. Ferguson

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Cascadia Commons: Vision Quest

Collin S. Ferguson — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 06:04:06 GMT

Klahowya Cascadians,

Tonight at 5:30 PM, Michael Wisedorf and I met with Claudia Moorad who is an organization consultant in the Portland Metro area. In the two operations meetings she has attended, her presence has been extremely helpful.

Cascadia Commons has its most basic purpose: a participatory forum dedicated to bioregional sustainability; however, what that forum will do is still in question. Claudia has advised us to seek our stakeholders, and to break those stakeholders into two groups: 1) stakeholders who in principle, are dedicated to the advancement of Cascadia Commons, and/or who are willing to fund it; 2) organizations that would benefit from our activity. From stakeholder group 1, we need to brainstorm Cascadia Commons and generate a vision.

On Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 6 PM to 9 PM, at the Virginia Cafe, 820 SW 10th Ave., Portland, OR 97205, we will have our first of a series of Vision Meetings. At this meeting, we will define a set of questions regarding what work the organization will do, what goals we will advance, and begin developing our desired process. Drop by anytime between 6 PM and 9 PM and put in your two cents.

Cascadia Commons looks forward to many of you attending. Let's build this organization together.

Kloshe nanitch,

Collin S. Ferguson

P.S. The Portland Timbers are back in town July 24th, 2008 at PGE Park. Game time is 7 PM. Join Cascadia Commons and wave the Doug Flag in support of the Timbers!

P.S.P.S. And, no offense if you are a Sounders or Whitecaps fan.

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Cascadia Commons Update* IMPORTANT!

Collin S. Ferguson — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:55:05 GMT

Klahowya Cascadians,

Here’s the latest on big changes at Cascadia Commons. Be ready to take some notes.

First, Community Way has chosen to delay its beta launch until early September. This provides us some breathing time so we can effectively write up the proper legal structure, develop a business plan, rebuild the www.cascadiacommons.org website, and continue our efforts for community outreach. If you have not read up on the Community Way program, please visit www.communityprosper.org and view the video.

As many of you are aware, Cascadia Commons has been talking to the Oregon Department of Economic and Community Development, and specifically representatives Amy Keiter and Mark Brady regarding a Cascadia Commons exposition during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C. Michael Weisdorf, Alan Rosenblith of Community Way, and I met with Mark Brady last Thursday in order to get a better understanding of their efforts. Mark is new to the department, so he did not have expertise in Mrs. Keiter’s project, but he was very open to our ideas about bioregionalism, local life, and knowledge-based sharing. This was a concern at the last Cascadia Commons meeting-- could working with the ODECD be damaging to our efforts? After our second meeting with the ODECD and Mark Brady, I am confident that they will be open to our ideas, and they are interested in receiving a proposal from us.

This proposal will discuss the following issues: 1) the creation of a networking site, 2) the establishment of an online (RSS Feed) newswire service called "The Cascadian," 3) our relationship with Community Prosper and Community Way, and 4) describe Cascadia Commons’ service as a capacity building coalition for organizations dedicated to restoration and the re-inhabitation of the Cascadian Bioregion, as well as Cascadian culture and history. These issues will need to be tailored to the needs and intentions of the Cascadia Commons Expo at the 2010 Winter Olympics, which is meant to display the sustainability movement in the Pacific Northwest. Governor of Oregon, Ted Kulongoski has already endorsed the expo for the purpose of allowing the State of Oregon to reap some economic benefits that the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C. may provide. This, of course, may sound like the ODECD and the governor are attempting to take advantage of British Columbia’s
show. Therefore, I believe it is imperative that our proposal emphasize the ideals of innovation by integration, knowledge-based sharing, local life, etc., because "we are smarter than me."

Building on this, our proposal to the Cascadia Green Building Council will discuss our connection with Community Prosper and the Cascadia Commons "skin" that will be our networking site. Community Prosper will be a networking site similar to myspace, facebook, or tribe.net, but will specialize in helping coalition organizations and members interact. Within Community Prosper there are hub organizations, i.e. chapters that define a category of work or the type or organizations within. Cascadia Commons will be one of those chapters/hubs, and our partner organizations would be, broadly speaking, dedicated to restoration and the re-inhabitation of the Cascadian Bioregion, as well as Cascadian culture and history. The Cascadia Green Building Council will hopefully be one of those organizations, and they will use our networking site to network their green builders, architects, planners, and engineers. We in turn, help them find volunteers, provide
financial resources through Community Way, and possibly connect their members with partnered neighborhoods associations or startup co-housing groups. This could be a very intense effort that provides for the innovation of many new projects all geared towards bioregional sustainability-- both environmental and socioeconomic varieties.

At the last Community Way meeting, the members of Community Way (including myself) discussed what would be the proper legal agreement, and this was also a topic that came up at the last Cascadia Commons meeting. So, Alan Rosenblith and Laura Belson of Community Way, and I met at Cubespace this morning at 9 AM to meet with a lawyer to discuss our legal options. Unfortunately, he never showed. At that point Alan and I decided we should go to Shorebank Enterprise Cascadia (http://www.sbpac.com/bins/site/templates/splash.asp) to see if they had any grant or loan programs for startups. Alan also wanted to know if they could function as a third-party auditor for Community Way. We made our presentation to one of their reps, and he asked many hard questions that we answered effectively. Our efforts to create a social networking site in Community Prosper and our connection to the Oregon Department of Economic and Community Development definitely impressed
him. Now, Shorebank Enterprise Cascadia would like to entertain a proposal from us, or specifically, view our business plan.

A couple of months ago, I attended a Second Life (www.secondlife.com) of Portland group meeting, and there I met an individual by the name of Rod Pittman. Rod Pittman works for Virtuscape (http://www.virtuscape.com/), which is a capacity building company for organizations and companies dedicated to improving their marketability in the virtual world. He is working on a couple of big projects including Blink 3D, which is an application that will allow users to build their own virtual worlds capable of interacting with programs such as Second Life. Rod is also working on a new film about industrial hemp called Hempsters, The Movie (http://hempstersthemovie.com/). I described to him over email the efforts of Community Prosper, Community Way, and Cascadia Commons, and he is really excited to meet with us. He also said that he might be able to find some initial funding. He is also the one that will connect us with the people who can help us build Virtual
Cascadia!

Also, in the coming weeks we have meetings with Mitch Purcel of the Urban League of Portland (http://www.ulpdx.org/) and a meeting with Nichole Maher of the Native American Family Center (http://www.nayapdx.org/), and possibly Commissioner Sam Adams of the City of Portland (http://www.commissionersam.com/). Some of you who attended the last meeting expressed interest in meeting some of these individuals. If you’re interested in community outreach, please send me an email.

I also want to announce the opening of the Cascadia Commons on Tribe.net. Please visit http://tribes.tribe.net/cascomm, and spread the word. And, if you’re on myspace, please visit and join http://groups.myspace.com/cascadiacommonsmyspace. We need moderators to run and design these two sites. Any volunteers?

Also, I would like to organize a trip to Oregon’s Country Fair. A fellow by the name of Jim Goettler is interested in joining our board. He will have a table at the fair, and would love to meet a few of us. Also, I met with Lori Williams, who recently received her PHd in Epidemiology and recently completed an internship at a Seattle capacity building nonprofit. I am very excited to know we now have a couple of people from Seattle interested in joining our organization. Jeff Moncniak, who is from Olympia and recently expressed interest in joining the board would be the third from the Salish Sea area. Welcome all of you. I hope you keep in touch and maintain your interest in joining the board of Cascadia Commons.

So where do we go from here? We need to break down into committees. Cascadia Commons as a representative of bioregional sustainability will need to cover many issues, and we will need to develop the network to allow all of that to happen in an integrated manner. We need to write a business plan and fine tune our marketing strategy. We will need to further discuss what it means legally to incorporate as a coalition organization, how to get foreign status in the states and provinces of the Pacific Northwest, and figure out our legal agreements with Community Prosper and Community Way. We need to write our bylaws, constitution, and finish our declaration. We need to rebuild the www.cascadiacommons.org website so that it is compatible with Community Prosper. Also, Community Way wants to have projects to fund for its September beta launch. These would be simple projects that would help advance our cause or help make the Cascadian public knowledgeable of our efforts.

This week, I realize is a busy time for those celebrating the July 4th holiday. Portland’s Blues Festival is also going on, so I understand if many of you are busy. What’s the following week like for you? I will be meeting with Rod Pittman on Monday or Tuesday, and hopefully we can have our first Tech meeting later that week. We will also need to have our first Operations meeting.

Thank you very much for reading this email. If you have any thoughts or concerns please email me individually. Please do not "reply to all" that received this email.

Thank you and kloshe nanitch,

Collin S. Ferguson

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