Maria Kuriloff

The Green Fest planning committee and the Green community lost a key member on Wednesday. Our deepest sympathies to Ron.

I always enjoyed working on projects with Maria, but it took a few years of working with her for me to realize how well Maria worked with everyone. In her good-natured way, she treated everyone in a friendly, respectful manner and got everyone to work together and get things done. Maria made things happen. She contributed tremendously to the Green Party at every level. Just one example: It was Maria who convinced Malachy McCourt to be our gubernatorial candidate in 2006.

We will have a tribute to Maria at Green Fest in August. Please bring your remembrances to share and post them now on the website set up by her son Matthew, http://www.mariakuriloff.com/.

Green Fest will Use Solar Stage

Many of the programs and performances at Green Fest will take place on an outdoor stage with amplification provided by the portable solar sound system created by Crow Weaver and the Native Earthling Band in affiliation with the Center for Environmental Sustainability in Ithaca.

The solar sound system collects sunlight via three photovoltaic panels. Each SunWize SW115 panel outputs 115 watts of power, for a total of 345 watts. The panels provide direct current at 16.7 volts. The SunWize panels have a "rated" working life of about 50 years, at which point the cells will still put out 85% of their design power.

The solar panels are wired into a charge controller that regulates the current supplied to the battery. This is the heart of the Solar Stage. The charge controller keeps the battery topped up while protecting it from being damaged by overcharging. The life of the battery is directly impacted by the quality of the charge controller. The Solar Stage uses the Solar Boost 2000E from Blue Sky Energy.

For more information about the solar stage, visit http://nygreenfest.org/solarstage.html

SEEDS Festival at Earthdance Community

Rafter Sass, who is doing a Liberation Ecology workshop at Green Fest 2009, will be participating in the SEEDS Festival Sunday, June 14 - Thursday, June 18 at Earthdance Community, Plainfield MA. Rafter's workshop in June will combine the participatory exploration and design studio of the Liberation Ecology workshop, with the mushroom-centric permaculture of Mycoscaping.

We'll weave back and forth between tools for designing healthy, abundant landscapes, and strategies for creating the vibrant and just society that can care for those landscapes. Social design and ecosystem design will enrich and empower each other.

This four-day participatory workshop gives participants the tools to start reclaiming ecological and social health - from specific techniques to broad strategies. Come prepared for a hands-on experience - we’ll be wrestling with hard questions, and going outside and getting our hands dirty!

In the Mycoscaping stream, we'll be learning about - and implementing - a variety of mushroom species and cultivation techniques in the landscape. We'll be looking at growing food and medicine everywhere, enriching the health of our veggie gardens and perennial plantings with fungal polyculture, bioremediation, wild mushrooms and forest ecology, and more.

In the Liberation Ecology stream, we'll be learning how to design collaborative projects that support the health of vibrant, whole communities. We'll map our relationships with natural and human communities, and create strategies to methodically connect our own desires for change with large scale transformation.

We'll all be collaborating to discover the emergent patterns and principles that arise from this hybrid workshop.

Introductions to Permaculture, to edible forest gardening, and related topics, will be incorporated along the way.

For more information, visit http://earthdance.net/seedsfest.htm

Workshops and Panels

As of today, we have about 30 workshops and panels scheduled for Green Fest. This schedule is likely to change, so please check back.

Fri., Aug. 7, 1:45 pm - 2:45 pm, Session 1

48 hour Rap on Sustainability and Green Politics, Chris Defendorf
Gas Drilling and Local Sovereignty, Rachel Treichler
Earth Oven Building Workshop

Fri., Aug. 7, 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm, Session 2

Progressive Video Workshop, Wilton Vought
Green Media Panel: Deborah Magone, David Doonan
My Name is Allegany County discussion, Gudrun Scott

Sat., Aug. 8, 8:30 am - 9:30 am, Session 3

Nut Tree Workshop, Tom Potts
Activism for Social Change, Paul Zulkowitz
Learning from Abandoned Houses, Jane Pearson

Sat., Aug. 8, 11:15 am - 12:15 am, Session 4

Zero Waste Workshop, Chris Burger
Liberation Ecology, Rafter Sass
Poetry Workshop, Mike Czarnecki
Economics as a Cultural System, John Doscher

Sat., Aug. 8, 1:45 pm - 2:45pm, Session 5

Green Media Panel: Sander Hicks, Ann Link, Lyn Gerry, Steve Welzer
Tickletown Sustainability Projects, Lois Hilton
Out of Time: Global Warming, Extinctions and Energy, John Doscher
Importance of Political Theory, Darin Robbins

Sat., Aug. 8, 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm, Session 6

Build Your Own Wind Turbine Workshop, Barry Miller
From Empire to Earth Community, Tim Bancroft
Sustainable Gardening, Carol Doscher
It Ain't Easy Being Green, Carl Romanelli

Sun., Aug. 9, 8:30 am - 9:30 am, Session 7

Tofu Making Workshop, Sam Weinreb
Building Local Community, Tony and Mary Lipnicki
Third parties and the U.S. experience, Tony Gronowicz
What is Sustainability? Douglas Clarke
The Spiritual Basis for Green Living, Bill Huston

Sun., Aug. 9, 11:15 am - 12:15 am, Session 8

Pollitical Organizing on Campus, Peter LaVenia, Jane Pearson
Living off Grid, Steve Nicholson
Panel on Third Party Barriers: Carl Romanelli, Rome Celli and Jerry Kahn
Sustainable Cities, Dan Miner, Carl Lundgren, Bob Kehoe

Draft Schedule for Green Fest 2009

Here is our draft schedule for Green Fest 2009. As of today, we have 46 confirmed presenters.

Friday, August 7, 2009

10:00 am — Registration opens
12:00 noon — Exhibits open
1:45 pm — Workshops and Panels, Session 1
3:00 pm — Workshops and Panels, Session 2
4:15 pm — Swimming, hiking, yoga
5:30-6:30 pm — Dinner in Dining Hall
7:00 pm — Forum on the Politics of Sustainability

Saturday, August 8, 2009

7:30-8:30 am — Breakfast in Dining Hall
8:30 am — Workshops and Panels, Session 3
9:45 am — Forum on Sustainable Energy
11:15 am — Workshops and Panels, Session 4
12:30-1:30 pm – Lunch in Dining Hall
1:45 pm — Workshops and Panels, Session 5
3:00 pm — Workshops and Panels, Session 6
4:15 pm — Swimming, hiking, yoga
5:30-6:30 pm — Dinner in Dining Hall
7:00 pm — Forum on Politics and Nature
9:30 pm — Music and Dancing

Sunday, August 9, 2009

8:30 am — Workshops and Panels, Session 7
9:45 am — Forum on Regionalism and Sustainability
11:15 am — Workshops and Panels, Session 8
12:30-1:30 pm – Lunch in Dining Hall
1:45 pm — Forum on Visioning a Green Future
3:30 pm — Adjourn

For more information, visit http://nygreenfest.org/