ANOTHER WAY TO THINK – An NVC course

Posted on December 29, 2014 by

ANOTHER WAY TO THINK: how to translate your judgmental, critical and blaming thoughts toward yourself and others into compassionate communication. Before you speak, you think. This four-week workshop will help you formulate empathetic ways of thinking that can profoundly affect what you say.

The workshop will take place Monday nights, 6 – 8, in the Garrabrandts Room of the Bangs Center in Amherst, January 5 – January 26. There is no fee, but participants are asked to purchase a workbook ($26.00, $$8.00 ebook); some copies will be available on loan.

This workshop will be led by Robert and Sharon Raymond of Shutesbury, long-time practitioners of NVC For more information or to register, please contact sharon@simpleshoemaking.com.

the workshop is for anyone in any relationship – especially one with yourself!

Workshop flyer:NVC alternative way to think

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Blog post on the presentation last Saturday

Posted on December 23, 2014 by

Not only last Saturday’s workshop succeeded very well, to an audience of 16, opening the Amherst Winter Farmers Market’s weekly workshop series this winter with elegance, but Nick and Betsy, long-time supporters and active participants, of Transition Amherst, even wrote a blog post about it on their “Adventures in the good life” blog!

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Emotional Resilience Workshop at All Things Local

Posted on December 22, 2014 by

Come to a discussion about how to create emotional resilience in our lives.
How do we “keep going” when everything looks so bleak? Lets talk! How to prepare ourselves for changing times and deal emotionally with emerging economic and environmental issues. How to use the gained stability to enrich our lives through physical action too. FREE!

WHEN: Sunday, January 11, 2015 at 2:00pm – 4:00pm

Where: All Things Local Cooperative Market
104 N Pleasant St, Amherst, Massachusetts 01002

See more: Grow Food Amherst Announcement

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Winter Farmers Market Workshop Series

Posted on December 22, 2014 by

The 2014-2015 season is shaping up in the middle school. Every Saturday when the market is on, at noon there is a one hour workshop held in the back room (labeled). Here is the series in its entirety

Dec 20 Gabor Lukacs: Resilence in and around your home
Dec 27 David Lovlar: Practical Backyard Composting
Jan 3 Will Miller (Cricket Creek): Grassfed Dairy Cheese Production
Jan 10 Henry Lappen: The Incredible Complexity of Trees
Jan 24 Dan Conlon (Warm Colors Apiary): Honeybees on the Farm/Pollination in the Pioneer Valley
Jan 31 Sarah Berquist (UMass): School Gardening and Community Education
Feb 7 Jeremy Barker-Plotkin (Simple Gifts Farm): Winter Vegetable Gardening
Feb 14 Tunzala Eynula (Dilaura Naturals): Natural Skin Care (working title)
Feb 21 Becky Reed, Family Nurse Practitioner: Food Is Your Best Medicine
Feb 28 David Ahlfeld: Your Carbon Footprint
March 7 Willie Crosby (Fungi Ally): Cultivating Mushrooms in the Home Garden
March 14 Claire Chang (The Solar Store): Replace Fossil Fuels One House at a Time
March 21 Ryan Voiland (Red Fire Farm): Growing Tomatoes
March 28 Isabel Masteika: Herbs for Everyday Use

See more at amherstwintermarket.com/!

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Resilience in and around the home

Posted on December 16, 2014 by

Dehydrating in the sun

Come to the winter Farmers Market in Amherst (Middle School), to see a slideshow that will teach and brainstorm about how to get food, heat, energy and water needs met without relying on external resources. (Meet in the Professional Development Room)

Date: December 20 Saturday at 12 noon

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It’s Not About the Nail!

Posted on November 24, 2014 by

Learn how to give an empathic response, using the principles of nonviolent communication.

Location: All Things Local store, downtown Amherst (104 N PLEASANT Street)

Time: Saturday, December 6, 3-5

"It's not about the nail" is a youtube video that has been viewed more than 8 million times – it seems people are yearning to understand how to respond emphatically to the distress of another person, or to distress of their own, but might not yet have the tools. During this workshop, presenters Sharon Raymond and Gabor Lukacs, both members of the All Things Local store and students of Nonviolent Communication as developed by Marshall Rosenberg, will offer you some tools for your empathy kit.

Watch the video – we’ll watch it again during the workshop – then join us Saturday, December 6, 3-5 at All Things Local Artisan Gallery and bring your baffling conversations for us to translate – no charge and welcoming to all.

Posted in All Things Local links, Celebrating Amherst, Dialogues and Conversations, Group Process, Reskilling Workshops | 2 Comments

Bike Maintenance

Posted on June 11, 2014 by

It’s a rainy spring here! During wet times, cold or warm, more things can go wrong with a bicycle, if not properly maintained.

Come to this workshop, where we look over all things that can go wrong, and build some understanding about what to do when something happens, but, even more importantly, what to do to avoid the problem even before it happens.

Time and location:
As usual we will meet at the Neighborhood Bicycle Resource Center, so come to 44 Beston street on June 14 Saturday, 4 to 6 pm.

See related past workshops:

Bicycle Maintenance

Spring Bicycle Tune Up

Adverse Weather Bicycling Workshop

Posted in Cargo Bicycling, Reskilling Workshops | Leave a comment

First CyclingSavvy course in Massachusetts is complete

Posted on June 4, 2014 by

The three-part CyclingSavvy course that Transition Amherst sponsored during Bike week was well attended as you can see it from the crowd on the right. Friday evening we got our classroom part amidst delicious finger food from one of the trainers’ Mom (yes, special thanks to her, Eli!).

And in a beautifully sunny Saturday (I even got a bit sunburned) we had both the bike-handling and in-traffic part of the course. Since then I don’t always take the lane like many of the pictures below show a bicyclist can, but I sure have the option in my mind and do it easier when I need to.

Posted in Cargo Bicycling, Reskilling Workshops | 1 Comment

Traveling bicycle dinner

Posted on May 30, 2014 by

Come to an event on Thursday, June 5 at the Florence, MA VFW, from 7pm to 9pm, where over a gourmet vegan dinner and beer a group of avid bicycle advocates, authors and film-makers will talk to us and entertain us with their movies and stories. Elly Blue http://takingthelane.com/, author of several books, among others travels around for the fourth summer now to raise much needed funds for their work.

The event only costs $10 if you pre-register at https://www.bikereg.com/dinner–bikes-tour-event (or $15 if you chance it at the door), because of the voluminous help of numerous sponsors.

For more information go to www.dinnerandbikes.com/about

Posted in Cargo Bicycling, Dialogues and Conversations, Movies, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Mushroom Log Inoculation

Posted on April 4, 2014 by

The picture to the right shows the crowd that gathered last May to inoculate logs. We had fun and some of us may already have had mushrooms. We will again be inoculating fresh oak logs with spores of Shiitake and other mushrooms. The trees are felled already and are cut to length.

Time: April 13, Sunday, 3 pm to 5 pm
(with rain- and second date exactly a week later)
Location: 44 Beston street (Gabor’s house)

The process:

  • Cutting log to manageable lengths and clean it from branches (done),
  • Drilling holes into logs,
  • Applying spores via inoculated plugs into the logs by hammering the plugs into the holes,
  • Protecting the filled holes by waxing the surface,
  • Placing the logs to a moist location without direct sunlight.

The logs, treated this way, will produce the first batch of mushrooms in roughly a year to 18 months, and for several times a year for several years thereafter.

Please let Gabor know you are planning on coming: we will be using power drills and other tools, so our numbers are important for the logistics of the organization.

The workshop is free of charge. Logs for you can be arranged at cost.

See more about our previous experience here!

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