Save the Date

The 28th Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures will be help on October 25, 2008 at the 1st Congregational Church in Stockbridge, MA.

This year's speakers:

Sally Fallon is founding president of The Weston A. Price Foundation, a non-profit nutrition education foundation with over 400 local chapters worldwide helping consumers find local grass-based animal products. Fallon speaks to the importance of returning to organic farming, pasture-fed livestock and whole traditional foods, properly prepared, if Americans are to regain their health and vitality, as well as the benefits of an economy based on small scale organic production and food processing that returns added value to the independent farmer, rather than to large-scale food processing conglomerates.


Anna Lappé is a national bestselling author respected for her work on sustainability, food politics, globalization, and social change. Named one of TIME’s “Eco-Who’s Who,” Anna has been featured in The New York Times, Gourmet, O-The Oprah Magazine, Domino, Food & Wine, Body+Soul, Natural Health, Utne, and Vibe. Since 2002, Anna has been collaborating with her mother, Frances Moore Lappé, through their Cambridge based Small Planet Institute, an international network for research and popular education.


Dan Barber began farming and cooking for family and friends at Blue Hill Farm. It was there that he was first introduced to and gained respect for locally grown and seasonal produce. Since May 2000, Dan has seen Blue Hill Restaurant grow from a noted neighborhood restaurant to receiving a 3-star New York Times review. In 2004 both Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture opened their doors. As the restaurant’s chef/co-owner and a member of the Center’s board of directors, Dan focuses on the issues of pleasure, taste and regional bounty and how these imperatives are threatened.

Reliving the Seminar

From the first read through of participants for the 2008 Building Sustainable Local Economies Seminar it was obvious that we had collected a special group. Susan said that never before had she experienced having such a talented and involved group collected for a Schumacher Society seminar. Attendees included community organizers, educators, farmers, social investors, and more. We could easily tell that we would be surrounded by wealth of knowledge, but we could not have foreseen how the connections between participants would heighten the entire experience.

On the evaluation forms filled out by seminar participants after the event—which I have shared with you below—almost every person mentioned the connection among group members as integral to his or her overall experience. From sharing our community's stories on Wednesday night to the final action plans on Sunday morning, jokes, suggestions, and encouragement abounded.

We captured some of the workshop presentations and discussion in audio format, which are now posted online.

Enjoy.

Chris Lindstrom
http://www.archive.org/details/lindstrom_money

Alex Thorp and Elizabeth Keen
http://www.archive.org/details/keen_thorp_ILF

Charles Turner
http://www.archive.org/details/turner_seminar

Eric Harris-Braun
http://www.archive.org/details/harris-braun_wealth

Susan Witt
http://www.archive.org/details/witt_clt

Joseph Stanislaw
http://www.archive.org/details/Stanislaw_energy