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May 28, 2009

Community Discussion Groups

Want to learn about food choices, living a more simple life, or climate change? How about some place-based education or how the choices you make as a parent affect your children? If any of these sound interesting to you, read on!

USEE is starting another round of Community Discussion Groups! Community Discussion Groups are run like book clubs where your group meets after you read each section of the book and discuss the themes that arose. If you are interested in participating, please RSVP by June 15. For more information about what each book is about and to RSVP, visit USEE's Community Discussion Group page.

Here are the upcoming classes and their start dates:
  • Menu for the future- June 25, 6:00 pm-7:00 pm
  • Global Warming- June 23, 6:00 pm-7:00 pm
  • Healthy Children Healthy Planet- June 22, 6:00 pm-7:00 pm
  • Discovering a Sense of Place- June 23, 6:00 pm-7:30 pm
  • Voluntary Simplicity- June 23, 4:00 pm- 5:00 pm
These classes are a lot of fun and really get you thinking. Want to know more about the voluntary simplicity course? It was featured on the news a couple of weeks ago, so if you didn't catch the boadcast, check it out here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Janet said...

I have gone through Menu for the Future two times now -- and am leading another group this summer! The course, and the opportunity to learn from others while reading through the materials, has really broken down what was an overwhelming issue for my family. We have made new commitments on what food we source and how we source it. We have been emboldened to take back things that we have been lulled into thinking were too difficult (cutting carrots, making jam). We have reorganized our budget to include organics where we can. We select our High Fructose Corn Syrup carefully (that's kind of a joke) rather than blindly eating it. And we have developed new connections within our community by going through these readings with others.

Spoiler Alert: Two of my favorite quotations from much great writing are:

"Eating with the fullest pleasure -- pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance -- is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend." - Wendell Berry, "The Pleasures of Eating" Week 1

"For years I've grown much of what my family eats and tried to attend to the sources of the rest." -- Barbara Kingsolver, "Small Wonder" Week 6

Join a group! :)