2008 Conference Workshops and Presenters
“The Electricity Fairy”
Art Menius, Executive Director of Appalshop
Whitesburg, Kentucky
Workshop Description
“The Electricity Fairy,” is a film in progress by Tom Hansell that uses the new Virginia City power plant to examine the effects of being an energy producer on central Appalachia.
Presenter Bio
Art Menius is Director of Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Appalshop was founded almost forty years ago on the principle that Appalachian people could use all kinds of media to tell their own stories and, by so doing, come to solve their own problems. Menius previously served as Executive Director of IBMA and the Folk Alliance and served for 10 years as Sponsorship and Marketing Director for Merlefest at Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, NC. He is a member of the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame.
Central Appalachian Network- A Regional Approach to Sustainable Community Economic Development
Sarah Watling, Central Appalachian Network
Athens, Ohio
Workshop Description
The workshop will include an introduction and overview to the Central Appalachian Network – CAN. CAN members are grass roots organizations in multiple states employing different technical skilled and expertise and culminating in an environment of shared learning. CAN members are applying their first joint project in Sustainable Regional Agriculture that targeting the Triple Bottom Line – Equity, Economics, and Environment, on a regional scale. This workshop will address some of the strategies that is CAN is engaging in including: applied best practices, network and joint project impact evaluation, and strategic communications.
Presenter Bio
Sarah has been working in grass roots and regional sustainable economic development for 8 years. Her experience began in Honduras, continued in Ecuador and she is now practicing in the Central Appalachian State of Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. Her work focuses on equitable solutions to environmental and economic concerns.
Ebay
Vickie Terry
Clairfield, TN
Workshop Description
Develop financial independence or supplement your income. Ebay offers the opportunity to create a steady source of income recycling used goods or selling your own products. Learn how to set up a Sellers account and start making money soon! Learn what is “hot” and what is “not” as well as other practical tips.
Presenter Bio
Vickie Terry is committed to both her family and Appalachian Issues. She is the proud Grandmother of ten grandbabies. She is a water tester for Upper Cumberland Watershed Watch and contributes regularly to her blog rallying against mountain top removal in her community of Rose’s Creek, TN.
Ecological Design in Appalachia
Samir Doshi
Workshop Description
The workshop will look at how utilizing ecological restoration of coal mined lands and multi-functional landscapes can invigorate local economies. Principles of ecological design, as well as the concept of ‘Community Capital’ through ecological economics will be discussed. Examples of agro-eco parks and applications of other mining communities will demonstrate what a new design for Appalachia can evolve into.
Small is Inevitable – Securing Safe Local Food, Energy, Water, and Soil for the Long-Haul
Brook LeVan
Carbondale, Colorado
Workshop Description
Rethinking and Redesigning our lives to be passive, durable, and simple will render our communities resilient to the host of consequences that are brought on by environmental destruction and a failing fragile globalized networks. In this work session we will explore appropriate solutions for the production and distribution of safe local food, energy, water, and the building of healthy soil. These four basic elements are bedrock in our efforts to rebuild hope and lay the foundation for economic renewal. We will review examples from the Relocalization movement in the States, and the Transition Towns movement in England. Together the participants will then collaborate to identify concrete strategies to implement in their communities that build resilience brick by brick.
Presenter Bio
Sustainable Settings in an entrepreneurial non-profit organization that inspires people and communities to embrace integrated solutions in sustainable development. To accomplish this mission the organization researches, designs, and demonstrates whole-systems strategies in sustainable agriculture, green development, micro-enterprise, community-scale relocalization, land stewardship, and art for daily life.
Brook LeVan lives and works surrounded by millions of acres of private and public land that the Bush/Cheney administration has deemed one of the “sacrifice zones” for the Nation’s energy needs. Natural gas, oil shale, and coalbed methane exploration and extraction has run rampant in Colorado spoiling people’s basic life necessities of clean air, water, and soil. LeVan is director of Sustainable Settings, established in 1997.
Home-Making Wine
Joan Deacon
Frederick, Maryland
Workshop Description
The workshop will feature a discussion and demonstration of some simple country wine-making techniques. It’s a fun hobby, and you’ll always have plenty of company at tasting time! A bottle of wine also makes a great gift – or barter.
Presenter Bio
Joan Deacon made her first wine in 1978, and has been an avid hobbyist ever since! Working with fruits and flowers, many gathered from road-sides and fields, and she continues to experiment with everything from pears to paw-paws, honeysuckle to mint. She received Best in Show award in the Country fruit category in Winemaker Magazine’s competition in 2007.
Homeschooling
Janet Futrell and Mary Ellen Sullivan
Big Hill, Kentucky
Workshop Description
Long time homeschooling organizers present an overview of homeschooling as a learning option that is embedded in local communities. The presenters will provide practical information about the variety of ways in which homeschoolers organize their learning and prepare for next steps in their lives, interact with needs and opportunities particular to their local communities, and support and participate in the work of other organizations involved in sustainable economic and cultural development. Participants will gain general information about homeschooling, particulars about legal realities in the Appalachian region, and testing and assessment of home-based learners. Perhaps most of all, Janet and Mary Ellen will tell stories of the place that homeschooling plays in the lives of children, families and communities.
Presenter Bio
Janet is the mother of four grown children. She is also a partner in learning with hundreds of children and parents since moving to Kentucky in 1986. Twelve years of home and community-based learning with two of our children. Twenty-two years of organizing homeschoolers into support groups and learning cooperatives. Paid coordinator of Kids Co-op 1990-2008 and of the Red Cedar Learning Cooperative 2005-2008. Since 2003, a member of Egret’s Cove, and intentional community focused on ecological sustainability.
Mary Ellen Sullivan is the mother of 3 grown sons, all homeschooled in WV, supplemented with public schooling. Founder (2002) and director of learning Options, Inc., a nonprofit whose mission is to create a sustainable interest-based learning center in the Fairmont, WV area. Owner of Songbird Learning Center. Masters degree in educational research and special education, 1978 and 2007. Certified teacher K-adult special education, 2007-present. Advisor to and state testing coordinator for WV Home Educators Association.
How to Organize a Biodiesel Co-op to Gather Local Waste Vegetable Oil for Local Use as WVO or Biodiesel
Sally Shepard
Sissonville, WV
Workshop Description
Come hear how WV Biofuels Inc. was founded as a cooperative to gather local waste vegetable pol for production into locally utilized fuel and advocate the local generation, and efficient use of, renewable fuels and energies.
Presenter Bio
Sally Shepard is an Conservation/Environmental activist trying to manage a 200 acre head-of-the-holler farm and discover ways to make small farms more sustainably/economically viable such as: Horse Operation – because I will not raise animals for slaughter, i breed, raise, train, rescue/rehabilitate horses for sale to carefully selected permanent homes, earning farm income from the sales as well as from training and recreational trail-riding. Such family recreation out on the farm, as well as providing fresh vegetables, firewood gathering, fence fixing, family bonfires constitute my version of Community Supported Agriculture; Growing Green Fuelcrops such as Miscanthus [for carbon sequestration credits, biomass, or cellulose ethanol] and Sunchokes [tubers for food or distilled for alcohol, or stalk for biomass or cellulosic]. Sally also founded WV Biofuels Inc. as a cooperative to gather local waste vegetable oil for production into locally utilized fuel and advocate the local generation, and efficient use of, renewable fuels and energies.
Introduction to Microhydro Power and Stream Site Analysis
Joe Rinehart, Graduate Assistant, Appalachian State University, Department of Technology
Boone, NC
Workshop Description
This workshop will cover an introduction to the basics of producing small and medium scale renewable energy from mountain streams and rivers. There will be a short introduction to Microhydro Power and a more in-depth look at evaluating your streams energy potential.
Presenter Bio
Joe Rinehart is a graduate student in Industrial Technology with a focus on Appropriate Technology and Renewable Energy at Appalachian State university in Boone, NC.
Learning and Earning from the Woods
Carol Judy, Clearfork Community Institute
Duff, Tennessee
Workshop Description
Workshop 101 for plants with cash value, type of woods they live in, role they have in the woods, what do these kinds of woods mean to the human community living there and the distant towns/cities? Questions which answered could lead to work for communities. Hope people will help with answers. What does it take to do “value added” for the roots? Is there a formula for knowing how much does a 12 in diameter tree use in a day and how much does it give back in a day? How much oxygen is produced by collective woods? What is the formula for calculating this? Plants that I dig require woods to grow. What is the life cycle of the forest needed for best quality roots? What does it take for community to live within that forest life cycle?
Presenter Bio
Carol is 58 years old, a single mother of two and grandmother of three. As she gains understanding of forest cycles, she is more able to understand the where and what of the collective community development. This grounds her educational endeavors in place based development.
Local Currencies: History, Theory, and Practice
Derek Douglas , Tennessee Regional Coordinator of Upper Cumberland Watershed Watch, Appalachia Science in the Public Interest
Newcomb, TN
Workshop Description
Explore the historical development of currency from Native American barter, Mercantilism, Colonial America to modern day local currency exchange systems. Learn about functioning local currencies and their impact on communities that utilize them. Get ideas for starting local currency/community exchange system in your area.
Presenter Bio
Derek’s family settles in Tennessee prior to statehood. He has been an activist volunteer in his community over twenty years. His interests include rural land use, sustainable economics, countryside preservation and art.
Nonviolent Communication
Susan Livingston, Founder, PANinA.org, NVC Practitioner, Department of Peace Campaign, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Appalachian Peace Education Center, Virginia Organizing Project
Virginia
Workshop Description
PANinA aims to harness the energy of celebration to nurture a world where every one’s needs matter and people have the skills to resolve their conflicts nonviolently. To accomplish that aim, PANinA promotes the organization of intentional communities using the sociocratic governance of John Buck and the inter- and intra-personal relationship skills of Marshall Rosenberg. Currently, PANinAis developing an election system in which all voters are empowered to nominate a candidate and not only rank-order the candidates but even express the degree to which they prefer one other the other.
Presenter Bio
Susan has completed about 40 days of training in NVC under the supervision of trainers certified by the Center for Nonviolent Communication (cnvc.org) including Marshall Rosenberg himself. She currently serves Clerk of the English-Speaking Americas Circle of global NVX network.
Our People, Our Souls, Our Hearts, Our Minds!
Janie Lee, M.Ed.
Kentucky
Workshop Description
This presentation is on the current state of the mental health social system. She wants to show why the system doesn’t and can’t work the way it is. She wants to show what the difference between mental health and mental illness is. She wants to show that the system we use now is broken and is actually doing some real damage to mountain families. She wants to show what coercion and force is and why that doesn’t work. She wants to show what we need to do to fix the system we have or at least get closer to fixing it. She wants to show why the grassroots needs to hold the system accountable for the damage that it is doing. She want you to leave with a knowing that you are not alone ans that you can stand up for yourself and the ones that you love and how we can act as a support and accountability mechanism for one another.
Presenter Bio
Janie Lee, M.Ed. Is a person who cares about the mountains and the people in it. Even though Janie grew up in Michigan she spent her summers in Williamsburg, Kentucky, and White Oak, Tennessee where her dad and his family was from. She lived in Kentucky full time since 1975. She graduated from Cumberland College with a BS in 1994 and from Western Kentucky University where she received her MA of Education in 1986. Janie has been a state trained advocate for several years, she has presented in various places for both small and large groups; she has also been published in various venues.
Small Wind in Appalachia
Eric Mathis, West Virginia Future, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
West Virginia
Workshop Description
The “Small in Appalachia” workshop will offer a comprehensive discussion on the development of small-scale wind power in Appalachia. This workshop will cover five topics essential to the discussion: 1) how much small-scale wind potential exists, an where it can be developed; 2) The macro and micro economic benefits of developing small-scale wind power; 3) State-level policies that would help spur the development of small-scale wind; 4) how to pursue getting small wind for your home or community; 5) Success story/stories from regional residential/community-scale small wind projects.
Presenter Bio
A graduate student of History and Women Studies from Appalachian State University, Eric is now working on a project to develop a wind cooperative and sustainable wind manufacturing plant in Mingo County, WV. The project is being conducted with West Virginia Future, and is named J.O.B.S Project. For his graduate studies, Eric is presently researching the historical economic conditions that have maintained poverty within southern West Virginia coal communities. This research is informing the J.O.B.S project.
Solar Energy – An Introduction to Solar Electric Solar Thermal Technologies
Joshua Bills, Energy Specialist, Mountain Association for Community Economic Development
Berea, KY
Workshop Description
This workshop will provide an introduction to the different ways solar energy can be used to meet our energy needs, with a focus on solar electric and solar water heating systems. There will be discussion of innovative financial incentive programs that can help people overcome the high up-front costs of solar energy systems, and make the use of solar energy technologies more commonplace.
Presenter Bio
Joshua Bills is Energy Specialist at MACED pursuing emerging energy efficiency and renewable energy opportunities for the client entrepreneurs. Josh assists the Business Development team in developing financing opportunities for energy reduction and renewable energy projects. A former renewable energy installation entrepreneur himself, Josh brings a distinctive perspective to the position, with firsthand knowledge of the needs of, and the demands on energy efficiency and renewable energy installers today. Josh holds a BA in mathematics from Berea College and a BS in mechanical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, and experience with over 100 renewable energy installations throughout Kentucky, Haiti, and as far off as West Africa.
The Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative – Mineland Reforestation
Patrick N. Angel, Ph.D.
London, KY
Workshop Description
Share the implementation of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1978, many opportunities have been lost for the proper reforestation of surface mines during reclamation. As a consequence, significant forest fragmentation has occurred in the diverse forests of the Appalachian coal fields. The Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative (ARRI) is a cooperative effort among the seven coal producing states and the federal government to plant more high-value hardwood trees on reclaimed coal mined lands in Appalachia, increase the survival rates and growth rates of planted trees, and to expedite the establishment of forest habitat through natural success. Participants of this workshop will receive in-depth instruction on regulatory, technical, and cultural barriers to establishing forests on surface mines and hands-on instruction on Forestry Reclamation Approach as advocated by ARRI.
Presenter Bio
Forester/Soil Scientist, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Appalachian Regional Office, London, Kentucky. Dr. Patrick Angel has been employed by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM), United States Department of Interior, in London, Kentucky since the implementation of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act in 1978. Angel is currently serving as Chief Forester and Soil Scientist for OSM where he is promoting the reforestation of surface mines through the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative. Angel is a graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas with a BS and MS in Forestry. He is also a graduate of the University of Kentucky with a P.h.D. in Soil Science.
The Watershed as an Organizing Force: The Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team
Dr. T. Allan Comp
Workshop Description
The ACCWT is a multi-state partnership of community/watershed groups committed to addressing the challenges left by more than a century of mining in Appalachia. Our mission is to fight poverty and provide rural mining communities with the assistance they need to make their watershed communities cleaner, healthier, and safer places to live and work. ACCWT places, trains, and supports up to 55 AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteers who live and work full-time in rural host communities in an eight-state region to promote watershed stewardship and civic engagement. Functioning like domestic Peace Corps Volunteers, Watershed Team members serve local watershed organizations in areas that have a history of coal mining, where watersheds are indeliblymarked by the scars of pre-regulatory mining practices and rural communities suffer from poverty in a boast-coal-boom economy. The workshop will review the work of the ACCWT and the process of becoming a Sponsoring Organization – or an OSM/VISTA – with the ACCWT.
Presenter Bio
Dr. T. Allan Comp trained as an industrial historian, but now works in environmental reclamation and community redevelopment. He created the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team in 2002 to empower communities in Appalachian coal country, one watershed at a time. In six years, his Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team is now 55 full-time VISTA volunteers and thousands of part-time community volunteers. Watershed Teams in eight states have raised almost $8 million and put in over 100,000 hours to clean up the environment – all in a region devoid of significant funding sources, wealth, or even spare time. Comp is the recipient of the 2008 Purpose Prize Fellow award and the ACCWT was named Government Partner of the Year in 2006 by the National Summit of Mining Communities.
Worker Cooperatives and Really Green Jobs
Frank Adams
Asheville, NC
Workshop Description
Employees who own and manage the firms where they work are seldom, if ever, asked by politicians or pundits how ownership gives their jobs substance as well helping their communities stay economically healthy. Why? They quickly learn that labor-the employees- are renting capital to grow their firms. Politicians are pundits used to capitalists- the sole proprietor, the absentee owners or the private equity fund – renting the labor for whatever is decided to be a price suitable to their prosperity. Worker cooperatives, and democratic employee stock ownership plans, upset custom, bankers, capitalists, even a number of socialists through history.
Presenter Bio
President and founder of Southern Center for Cooperative Ownership dba SACCO, Inc. Asheville, North Carolina. Since 1977, Adams has been developing worker-owned cooperatives or other forms of employee ownership, by helping people help themselves, ideas he learned to practice at Goddard College and Highlander. He is the author of five books including /To Know for Real: Royce S. Pitkin and Goddard College/ and /Unearthing Seeds of Fire: The Idea of Highlander/ with Myles Horton.
What’s the Economy For Anyway? Why We Need a Solidarity Economy
Elandria Williams, Coordinator of the Education Team and youth Organizer at Highlander Research and Education Center
Susan Williams, Co-coordinator of the Education Team and Coordinator of the Highlander Library/Resource Center, at Highlander Research and Education Center
New Market, TN
