Community Village Meeting, January 14, 2021

Council present: Tim, Sara, Brooks, Kim, David late, Diane via phone

Absent: Karla (relative is in hospital), Nathan

Agenda:

Set Intention – 5
Confirmation of Council – 3
Fair announcements – 5
Site Report – 5
Hello’s go-round – how are we? – 20
Sam Rutledge Q & A – 2021 Fair???? – 3
Virtual 2021 Committee – call for action – 15
Village Connectory/web page setup. – Tim – 5
Village meeting guest ideas – 10
Fundraising discussion? – 10
Activist/Diversity report – 10
Strokes and pokes – 2 

Virtual Committee:

Paxton Hoag
Tim Mueller
Adrian Acosta
Chrissy Peirsol
Kimberly Robles
3 others + Ingrid, Jair, Jamie

28 Villagers attended this meeting. Out of 180 passholders….

Set Intention
sue takes a breath and loves everyone from our hearts

Agenda review
Go over agenda. No new additions.

Confirmation of Council

Karla Caudell 541.337.5319    kjcaudell@gmail.com

Tim Mueller 541-521-7208  tim@gwproj.com

Diane Albino 541 954 4721    iriedi@yahoo.com

David Hoffman (541) 484-9204    fixit@efn.org    

Nathan Georgitis 541-743-5636  nathang@uoregon.edu

Sara Sweatt, 541 554-2012 saralynnsweatt@gmail.com

Brooks McLain,  541-515-5804 brooks.mclain@gmail.com

Shadows:

Kim Robles, 541-743-3913 lizzycordich@gmail.com

Lois Inman, 541-836-2670 linmann@hotmail.com

Fair announcements
Karla re: H&H… Crystalyn tells her that capital projects are in limbo, so we will be notified when it’s time to ask for funds to rebuild the H&H loft, which has collapsed.
Ingrid: started at Corvallis OSU, and is hosting BLM event:
Jan 18, Angela Davis: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/39th-annual-martin-luther-king-jr-keynote-and-awards-celebration-online-tickets-127041066249
Feb 4, Mae Jemison: https://oregonstate.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_FoDKcnneR5GOcrUqic1_Zg
Jain: OCF 2021 planning discussion on Sunday. https://oregoncountryfair.net/event/board-working-assembly-2021-plans/  Shady Grove Maple gone. ☹
Kim: Plato from Intentional Communities taking over as Booth coord for IC. Satesh (sp?) may be moving to Energy Park now.

Site Report
Shady grove tree is down. Very swampy by village. Geological survey river gauge in Noti, 12 ft lots are flooded, 15 ft path is flooded. Fair site open Friday-Sunday only.

Hello’s go-round – how are we? – 20
Sue B. grateful she is retired, must be so hard for parents with school kids, Joti is cooking for her. Tim: Things are OK, enjoying Zoom dinners with friends and family, better than nothing! Kim: is OK in Mexico, coming back Sunday, wanna visit her house in Mexico, use her car! Sara: is busy and hectic, war face shield and mask al day at work, kids are good running around. Bob: physically fine, job is boring no one hardly around, looking for a new car, Tanya’s son died, youngest daughter is with them. Nel: 4^th Zoom meeting today, still alive doing OK, looking forward to vaccine very soon, missed you all, likes the days getting longer. Jain: moved in with son and kids, will move back in with Sue when vaccine is available, LUMP meeting heard some land might be sold, LUMP wants to be part of that decision. Brooks: is healthy, works at home has a teen doing better at math, dog died in 2021, lets hold tight to each other. Laura R: Areas coord, all are healthy, son moved out (19 yrs old now) not in college till in person attendance is restored, daughter does not like online school but has a friendship pod. Mike: doing alright, not caught up with projects, nice to be here, wants to help, wants to make music. Ingrid: has 1 ¾ yr old, miss all of us terribly, has 3 friends, talks to students on Zoom, tells them she is “not a qualified Mental Health professional”. Sharon B: jealous re: Mexico, blessed with time to be there for family – mom, sees 2 yr old grandson lots, happy new year! Sam: on the OCF Board just to keep busy, working from home, extrovert in a house of introverts, miss hugs, social interaction is a walk, likes it, got through baking and Net flix phase, now in fitness phase, kids are 14 (mustache??), 10 & 8. Kelsey: maybe will reach out to booth mates a bit more, feeling good, working sorta from home, wishing for more completion of projects. Linda: Needs a haircut, mostly doing crafts (cigar box purses) home improvements, also likes walks, misses us all. Diane Campbell: blessed to have a job at home, 2020 feels like 5 years, very social, so it’s been hard, but now feels anxiety when out (weird) got her 1^st vaccination, interested in Mexico, looking forward to normal. Diane Albino: is doing ZOOOM meeting with inadequate gear, kid school is frustrating, maybe have a Village walk at Fair in better weather? Emz: Rainbow Village, has a new job, 2 weeks in. Jair: best wishes to all, soul searching, deep thoughts, teaching at SOU, has a first book coming out in 2 months on Media, happy about 2020 virtual fair.  Maggie & Donald: has grandkids every week, watched Dali Lama and Greta Thurnberg video, good stuff. Donald has new job clearing trails and planting trees, retired from U of O, Dali talked about how we used to be able to feed yourself in the old days – we are a community. Jade: Rainbow village, Dea’s stepson, doing well excited to be involved, training for a marathon. John Flannery: I’ll zoom in, but I have neither camera nor microphone, so you won’t know who I am. Marget & Eric: arts booth, working at home, 3 teens, Disney +, planting a garden. Jamie: too quiet to hear, sorry. David H: thanks for doing this, his working farm is shut down, OCF access is Mon-Thurs only, flooding is normal Long Tom went up 15’, pruned his fig tree, glad we’re still connected.

Sam Rutledge Q & A – 2021 Fair????
“Hi everybody. Nice to see you all. Now I’m on the OCF Board. Can’t speak for Fair.” Speaking as himself. Sharing screen: Motion offered by someone to create a committee to oversee OCF assets, regular assets to steward them, likely not empowered to sell those assets, maybe make recommendations to Board. Own lots of property (millions $$). OCF is 502C3 nonprofit. Has a mission statement to have events for psycho spiritual events. Non-profit is not dependent on Village alone.
2021 scenarios.
18th 6:00 to talk about scenarios: https://oregoncountryfair.net/2021-event-scenarios-draft/ See link above for access to the meeting. Not gonna have 3 day camping event this summer. Under 65 not getting vaccine until after Christmas?? OCF takes a lot of lead time, would not be time left for that now. Document lists some good options. Some on, some off site.
Questions
Nel: where is link to meeting? (above) OCF is working with reduced staff, so website may not be up to date. Sam will post on Drum. Executive Director Wally resigned, have interim ED Liz Fields from Page 2 Partners who provide interim Eds for organizations to do the work and help transition to a new ED.
Ingrid: Thinks she took survey of options… May have gone out before the option list with responses to help create list.
Brooks: Could multiple scenarios be chosen? And Virtual Fair, too? Likely a Virtual Fair, will there be more resources? Maybe. No one has said only 1 scenario, no decisions yet, could be maybe. Sam would share our ideas.
Mike: All our input is welcome. Sam – We have an opportunity to blossom. The Board will decide what we might do.
Margaret: Is it required that there are in-person event(s)? Won’t do anything that’s not safe.
Tim: Non-conforming Use Permit issue. Fair is non-conforming use in agriculture zoned land. Fair came before the zoning rules, but we need to do it every year or loose the permit. In 2020 the State said to extend for this year. Will it happen in 2021? Not yet known. Options listed incudes would anything on site meet requirement?
Ingrid: She’s in book club, met at safe distance. Booze led to mask errors. How to keep something secure, how to make an equitable reduced size event? Sam’s hope the NCUP gets extended. An equity lens would be used for any event. If we had to do something it could be small and may not be fun, just be a place holder. Nothing official yet.
Tim: Grow pot to satisfy agriculture requirement?? (ha ha) Maybe at the winery – special use related to agriculture business or tourism, maybe a farmer’s market? Weed would be too complicated. Still taboo in Feds.
Brooks: Timeline for a new ED? Not sure. There is a transition team working with Liz.

Virtual 2021 Committee – call for action
Tim had put up a survey of folks to see how we might nurture our community when we only have zoom. It included choices for folks to click if they wanted to do any of the choices. About 40 people took the survey, but many did not add their name or email. Still it was helpful and a few names were added, enough to have the core of this committee. The first meeting of this committee will take place, probably, with the Council next Thursday – a DRUM message will be sent out with Zoom access. One of the options discussed was to record acts on a set up CV stage in June with only a small audience. Bob F does not want to set up stage, too much effort and time. Instead record acoustic acts without stage or sound system at Fair site. Also looking for a diversity of acts, especially as we can have more than the usual 12. 2020 virtual event had 25 acts. For 2021 a bigger crew/committee is needed to prepare and mount a virtual show, maybe meet another day soon. 2019 crew was a skeleton crew with Adrian way overworked producing and directing. Ingrid, part of the small team, cherished that time.

Village Connectory/web page setup.
Value? Yes. Every activist group/individual is invited to fill out the form to be added to the Community Village Activist Booths pages: https://communityvillageocf.org/community-village-activist-booths/ Here is the form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeGl-8kEXI-9QAWIoZv1dHuRViqz7GHj-R8iP7ucuWsg4c2Kg/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0&usp=mail_form_link There will be a page for each activist booth featuring all the groups in that booth that fill out the form. This depends on each group doing the work, and other volunteers will use that info to build their booth’s page. The Doors page is an example. https://communityvillageocf.org/2020/11/10/doors-of-expression/ Each of these pages with be a “post” so viewers can make comments.

Village meeting guest ideas
Angela Davis and Mae?? Could be Centro Latino Americano, Transponder, Cassadra singing, help us stay healthy advice, videos of Native voice Winona LaDuke, Diversity Training videos, each booth make a presentation to rest of the village. Jair likes this event, kinda surreal, kinda expected something like this to happen, we are all actually here…The Social Dilemma is worth watching, could help us all in many ways.

Fundraising discussion?
Should we pass the hat? Should the village fundraise in our meetings? May need consent as the Village does not take donations during Fair? Could be.
People here may hate Amazon, but there is smile.amazon donating a percentage of each purchase, including Transponder and KindTree. Tim will ask for consent next month? Activist reports often include donation links, could donate to activists report group. Get list of nonprofit donation portals. Tim will add a field in the form to gather that information. Could have longer activists reports.

Activist/Diversity report
Brooks: Trying to reconstitute village Diversity Committee, so far Kim, Sue, Ericka, Plato and Brooks brooks.mclain@gmail.com. Will be meeting via Zoom in the next few weeks. Working to create more diversity in the committee and village. Looking for training resources. OCF committee hired consultants, including Oblio, to make OCF more diverse. Shakti Training is doing Zoom based sessions aimed at educating about Anti-Blackness in the US. Surveying folks who left village to find why they left. What do we need to honor and preserve rather than “change” yet still be inclusive? Be a shining example without pain. It’s not just the Rainbow booth… Improve diversity within each booth… More BIPOC in Green Earth – climate change damage to those groups, for example. In 2021 we have endless room for more participation, no pass number limitations, in each and every booth. Brooks looking for Black Unity. HIV alliance…
Jair is actually Japanese, went to Portland Garden tour with the curator. First time he ever mentioned that.

Strokes and pokes   
Thank you to Sue, thank you to Council, screen share was smooth. Nel shows art work she did during the meeting. Thanks everyone for showing tonight, thanks Sue for facilitating, and thanks Tim for taking notes!

Random Additions
Lottery of booths to work onsite to clean up? Good idea. Now it’s not safe for OCF. Maybe different later in the year.
Broadcast from booth for booth hangout?
David: Diversity…consider purple people eaters, can still play rock thru hole in their head… Bob might have a costume. Funny fellas.
Kim: plug for more facilitators, get together to practice. Seeds for change… has videos. Volunteer…? Sara!! Talk to Kim: 541-743-3913 lizzycordich@gmail.com

Notes by Tim Mueller