Throughout the summer we will have updates about work remaining on VBC projects. Below is an opportunity to help out at the Trail’s Crossing project.

Oregon City Trail’s Crossing Bench

We are holding open cobbing work parties every Tuesday throughout June and July. All are welcome, RSVP by email or phone (503-650-4447) appreciated. Our address is 772 Division St., Oregon City, and we are on bus line 32.

Before VBC8 fades into our too-distant memories, we’d love to get your feedback.

The Core organizing group would like to know how your experience was this year. Please send us any feedback, constructive criticism, suggestions for next year, highlights from this year. Did you love the Village Building Convergence 2008? What would add or change about VBC? Please let us know by taking the VBC8 Survey. Your input is invaluable to us! Simply click on the link below and take 5 minutes to help shape VBC9

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=3DaWClrcE4jrYgzMlTxoivbw_3d_3d

Thank you!

VBC8 Core Group

Free Tool Enthusiasts,

The Northeast Portland Tool Library wants to share the latest developments.

Future meetings will be announced here on The Word.

All tool donations should go to Tom Thompson (tomscot51@yahoo.com,503.539.1756), at 4815 NE 20th St.

All other questions or interest in financial donations/volunteering should be directed to Eric Fair-Layman(ericfairlayman@yahoo.com,503.754.0534)

This is what we’ve accomplished:

-We have been approved to be incorporated under Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods (NECN) and should have a nonprofit tax-id number very soon (this week, we think).

-The Redeemer church on 20th & Killingsworth has let us inhabit their garage until developers can figure out what to do with the property (3 to 6 months?).

-Rebuilding Center is giving us just about everything we need to fix up the garage and Parr Lumber & Beaumont Hardware are giving us everything else we need at cost.

Let’s get this started. See you at the next meeting. If you are interested in helping out, but can’t make it to the meeting, please let us know.

The NEPTL team

Are You Looking for Office or Studio Space in a Creative-Action

Incubator? The City Repair Project organization of Portland, Oregon is bringing together a new eco-action incubator in the building which formerly housed the Portland Women’s Temple. There are several extremely beautiful 200 to 250 square foot spaces available. Each space is unique, with gorgeous windows, a balcony, and garden views.

We want to share this unique and wonderful place with people who are creative and dedicated to promoting healthy and sustainable communities, including: Non-profit community organizations, creative activists, health practitioners, professional designers, artists, architects, and many other kinds of people who would thrive in this environment! No live/work option.

Each space will have access to: A location within a beautiful cast stone building, centrally sited at 3125 NE Burnside. Upstairs spaces surround an open stair-court, which is a very unique feature. There is a 50’ x 100’ vegetable, herb, and fruit tree garden that is part of the building, and it includes a wonderful and mysterious cob tea house that is available to all co-occupants of the building. There is also a fire pit and another more intimate garden on the north side of the building as well as a small front garden. The front porch of the building also features a community-made cob sculpture. A large, shared kitchen with all appliances necessary to cook for groups. There is also a lovely shared bathroom overlooking the garden. The address is located on important bus lines. There is plenty of on-street parking, and several restaurants, coffee shops, and stores nearby. First and last month’s rent will be required.

Please call Bruce at 503-459-7322 or email bruce.podobnik@gmail.com for more information or to visit the building and see it with your own eyes.

www.forestcouncil.org <http://www.eco-advocates.org/

On Sunday, July 27, 12 noon to 5 pm at Portland’s Pioneer Square (701 SW 6th Ave.) take a stand with the Pitchfork Rebellion and other forest lovers for a rally in opposition to the Bureau of Land Management’s WOPR plan to increase native and old growth forest logging by 700% and a free concert in celebration of the forests that give us life.

At the rally the Pitchfork Rebellion =96 who live in Oregon’s Coast Range mountains surrounded by industrial forestland clearcuts and BLM lands that would be logged under the WOPR =96 will call for a ceasefire in the timber industry’s war on our forests, with collateral damage ranging from muddied and poisoned drinking water, to deadly landslides, to extinct salmon runs, to carbon emissions released from trees and soil.

This group of rural Oregonians is sick (literally!) of having their water sources, organic crops, livestock, and families poisoned by timber industry helicopter pesticides and their hills and mountains scarred by clearcuts. The BLM forests are the last islands of unlogged native forest in a wasteland of industry clearcuts and tree farms.

Speakers include ecological forester Roy Keene; Tim Hermach, executive director of Native Forest Council; Bill Barton, private forestland owner; Lauren Regan, executive director of Civil Liberties Defense Center; and testimonials from forest-dwellers whose families have been poisoned by backward timber industry clearcutting and herbicide practices.

Pitchfork Rebellion co-founder Day Owen says: “Three years ago my wife and I co-founded the Pitchfork Rebellion in response to the poisoning of many of our forest-dwelling neighbors by timber industry helicopters spraying herbicides on the clearcut mountains that ring our homes.

“This Fall, my wife and I were poisoned by aerial spraying near our home and had to get medical attention. This Spring, our teenage daughter needed medical attention after an early morning aerial spray across from our home.

“This rally in Portland is nothing less than a cry for help from us rural Oregonians to you folks in the big city!” says Owen.

Musical performers include world-renowned reggae/world music superstar Thomas Mapfumo and his band the Blacks Unlimited; Caribbean reggae star Evan Belize; Freebo, former bass-player for Bonnie Raitt; political folk musician David Rovics; Native American and African drumming and other musical acts.

Pitchfork Rebellion will also share the findings of its report which reveals how high-level positions in State and Federal Agencies that have legal stewardship over our soil, water, air, and natural wealth are staffed by current and former employees of multinational corporations (i.e. EPA’s Elin Miller, former Dow chemical executive).

Pitchfork Rebellion’s immediate and non-negotiable demands:

-Scrap the BLM’s W.O.P.R. and replace it with a plan that would manage public forests as “Old Growth Reserves for Carbon Sequestration to Fight Global Warming,” while providing real protection for watersheds and wildlife.

-Reinstate harvest (severance) tax on private timber industry clearcuts, exempting small woodland owners.

-Establish a legal buffer zone that prevents the aerial spraying of pesticides within one mile of property with a home or school on it and increase existing buffer zones for waterways.

-Remove Oregon Board of Forestry members with financial conflicts of interest by adopting federal ethics standards.

-Remove the clause “maintaining the availability of pesticides” from the official mission statement of the Oregon Department of Agriculture and its Pesticide Division, including PARC (Pesticide Analytical Response Center).

-Stop the erosion of our civil liberties.

-Revoke corporate personhood. Corporations currently have the legal rights of persons without the legal accountability.

Rally to Stop the WOPR & Save Our Forests is sponsored by: Pitchfork Rebellion, Cascadia’s Ecosystem Advocates, and Oregon Wildlife Federation.

More about Pitchfork Rebellion in Eugene Weekly: http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2006/03/16/coverstory.html

Also: This event kicks off the 2nd Annual West Coast Convergence for Climate Action, located near Eugene July 28-Aug. 4! The “Climate Convergence” is a week-long camp, temporary eco-village, carnival, conference, action-camp focusing on environmental justice and climate action. Educate, motivate, collaborate! For more information or to get involved, contact Monica Vaughan at monicasutopia@riseup.net. Go to www.climateconvergence.org for info.

The T-Horse and T-Hows are up and running this summer on Monday evenings serving Tea, potluck snacks and good conversation. The T-Hows is located at our new HQ, the Temple, on E. Burnside and the T-Horse will be driving out to communities, including VBC8 sites this summer. A community donor has offered a $250 Matching Grant to help provide funds to keep the T-Horse/Hows on the streets serving the community throughout the summer. Please consider even a small donation as it will be matched through this generous donor!

Please send any donations noting they are for the T-Horse/T-Hows to the City Repair Project, P.O.Box 42615, Portland, OR 97242. Thanks, so much.

-matt