Thank you for joining us today to learn about and celebrate the work of Conexions. Your presence is truly affirming. Before going any further, I want to acknowledge a few more people here today. We have some trustees and friends from Foundation for Global Community – Jim and Wileta Burch, Don and Virginia Fitton, Bill and Beth Devincenzi, and Len and Libby Traubman. Conexions emerged out of the Foundation for Global Community, which has gone through many incarnations over the last 60 years. The Foundation for Global Community has supported Conexions’ emergence as a separate non-profit through start up funds, mentorship, love and support. For today, they have given us a challenge grant of $25,000, to help us make it through this transition time going from a start up to an independent organization. We greatly appreciate all of the support you have given us. Thank you!

I see so many other familiar faces here and also new faces, making this gathering a real treat! Many of you know us through one or more of our projects. Today, we hope to give you a sense of the whole.

We live in a time which is calling for a shift in values followed by a shift in behavior. This shift comes from knowledge and experience. It also comes from something deeper; a transformative understanding that we are not separate from the Earth or each other, but we are part of an incredibly rich dynamic system which makes up our planet Earth. This system, in turn, is embedded in a much bigger system that we call the Universe, full of beauty and mystery and gives us a bigger evolutionary context to consider.

Our Earth system, of which we are completely dependent upon, is in trouble. I don’t need to tell you this. Just a few phrases of our time such as global climate change, species extinction, war and economic meltdown are familiar to us all. As Joanna Macy, the Buddhist scholar and systems thinker puts it, these are all symptoms of the “Great Unravelling.” At the root of this Great Unravelling is a pervasive illusion that we are disconnected and that our individual and collective attitudes and behavior don’t matter.

However, we are also in the midst of something much more conducive to life, and a whole lot more inspiring to talk about. Macy calls this “the Great Turning.” All over the world individuals such as you and me are responding to the crises we face, and this is where Conexions comes in. With the Great Unravelling as a context and a motivating force, all of our projects play a role in the Great Turning, the essential adventure of our time – a focus on becoming a life-sustaining society. We call this role regenerative action.

So what is regenerative action? We chose this phrase in our mission statement to direct our intention and our actions beyond sustainability and create abundance- in our relationships, in our food system, in our businesses, in our schools and in our homes.

I’d like to show a short video now. It features one of our project directors, Karen Harwell and shows how anyone can create abundance in the world using the knowledge and tools that Conexions’ programs offer.

This was an impromptu video where a group visited Karen’s home. It shows one example of how any individual can take positive action in their own lives to create abundance in their home and community while living in a mutually enhancing way with their environment.

Our projects fall into four interrelated categories to help create abundance in our communities: Healthy Food, Integral Ecology, Innovative Business and Personal Effectiveness. I’d like to share some highlights:

Sustainovation has launched a Green Eggs breakfast series to bring leaders together to learn about trends and opportunities to bring business practices more in alignment with the Earth and community needs.

Our Green Fork project has given several regenerative classes and community experiences this past year. We had a 100-mile Thanksgiving tasting with numerous dishes made from local and organic sources. The brunch you are having today consists primarily of local and organic ingredients. We are also involved with multi-stakeholder efforts throughout San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties to create a foodshed assessment, work with our local governments to create policy that strengthens our local food system and raise the awareness of the importance of garden-based education in our schools

Getting Going Growing is busy getting 5 school garden programs established in low income schools in San Jose to give those children opportunities to get excited about fresh fruits and vegetables as well as learn about natural systems, and is working with a regional group to develop standardized research questions about the impact of school gardens on children’s health, learning, cooperative behavior and ecological literacy.

Our Peninsula Permaculture program has just launched “Earth Action Mentor” an on-line educasting site in partnership with Gaia University and other renowned permaculturists. This site gives people interested in green-living the ability to learn and get mentorship from world experts in Permaculture from their own home.

Exploring a Sense of Place is in its eighth year of offering a year-long course to getting to know our nearby San Francisquito Creek watershed while also distributing their guidebook and conducting mentorship workshops to other regions around the country and beyond. In California there are several programs utilizing our Exploring a Sense of Place guidebook- East Bay, Marin, Carmel, and San Diego. Elsewhere there is activity in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts North Carolina and a new program in England.

Conexions has accomplished a lot this year. We have found ways to save money, by reducing our rent by 30%, going through our budget line item by line item and cutting out anything “extra”, and in some cases even taking voluntary pay cuts, wearing multiple hats, and donating back into the organization to make it through these difficult economic times.

We are about to launch our new website, which we’ve been working on for several months. We also have a volunteer team of business experts looking at ways to make each project more viable economically while continuing to offer the community quality programs.

We plan to continue our many activities including supporting school gardens, offer a conference on sustainability for business leaders, and train more leaders throughout the country on how to run a Sense of Place program in their bioregion.

However, in order to be viable, we need your support. We need to continue strengthening our board of directors, we need help with outreach and with keeping our website fresh and updated and we need help spreading the word about our organization by telling your friends about us. We also need funding to continue. We appreciate large and small donations and whatever energy and talent you are motivated to contribute.

We hope you will be inspired to join us in transforming ourselves and our region to be truly abundant.

Thank you.

Susan Stansbury
November 1, 2009

Coypright. Permission to reprint may be obtained by contacting Conexions.