Join the 2013 EcoFairfield Festival Team!

EcoFairfield is in the process of becoming an independent non-profit, and our signature event is the Earth Day EcoFairfield Festival.  This year’s Festival will be a week long, starting Saturday April 20th and extending to Sunday April 28th.   We invite the community to host sustainability events throughout the week, which we will gladly promote on our Festival schedule.

Planned events include:

• Chataqua, a blend of music, informative presentations, and poetry
• A variety of workshops & presentations
• EcoJam Fashion Show
• Go Green Community Conversation session
• A Community Service Project (hopefully Dig In 2 Community Tree Planting!)
• Green Drinks Friday April 26th
• Green Vendors & Entrepreneurs Fair
• Whatever additional events the community sees fit: Interactive art, placemaking, documentaries, potlucks, garden-mustard pulling, fun run fitness festival, biking events, etc.

We invite you to host an event and coordinate it with us.  We are happy to provide helpful resources and mentor those new to event planning and organization.

Open positions on the core team include:

• Green Drinks Coordinator
• Social Media manager
• Communications & Marketing captain
• EcoJam Fashion Show Director
• Volunteer Coordinator (recruit and orient volunteers for festival weekends)
• Service Project Captain

If you are interested in any of these volunteer positions, please contact Minca Borg, ecofairfield@gmail.com or 641-233-1138.  We will be happy to share more details about each of these roles.  Experience is a plus, however it is also a joy to pass on the torch to new organizers.

Green Cornucopia!

Green Vendors Sale- over 50 booths- EcoFairfield Trade Fair Sat. April 21
All Green, All Natural. Admission is free.

Bring the family to Dharma Foundation’s first-ever Green Vendor Sale of eco-friendly products, gifts, toys and services on Saturday April 21 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center Expo Hall. It’s part of EcoFairfield’s Sustainable Living Celebration for Earth Day 2012 and you’ll discover an overflowing cornucopia of goodies to enjoy!

You’ll find a vast variety of delightful offerings from over 50 local and regional craftspeople, artisans, importers, performers and artists — and you can feel good that a portion of the proceeds goes to the Dharma Scholarship Fund to help students attend the Maharishi School.  You can also feast on a delicious buffet lunch from India Café.
You’ll find jewelry, scarves, toys, gourmet delicacies and organic cosmetics, ayurvedic aromatherapy products, organic chocolates and organic clothing and literally hundreds of other items.  It’s the ideal place to shop for unique gifts for upcoming birthdays of your family members or friends, or find the perfect natural water filter or hand-crafted kitchen goods for your home.
“We have a wonderful eco-oriented community and you’ll find an abundance of quality gifts that are exotic and unique, so it’s a great shopping opportunity” explains Donna Cingre of  the Dharma Foundation. It’s also an important fundraiser to help students attend Maharishi School, the first consciousness-based school in the world.”

For a list of Green Vendors that is being updated regularly,  go to tinyurl.com/Dharma21

In addition to the Dharma Foundation’s Green Vendor Sale, you can participate in other exciting events during EcoFairfield’s Sustainable Living Celebration.  RSVP here: http://www.facebook.com/events/409948079031068/

Rosalie D’Anne Borg
Event Coordinator
Dharma Foundation
EcoFairfield 2012
Serve. Connect. Inspire.
Because our locals are awesome!

The Earth is Full?

Have we used up all our resources? Have we filled up all the livable space on Earth? Paul Gilding suggests we have, and the possibility of devastating consequences, in a talk that’s equal parts terrifying and, oddly, hopeful.

Paul Gilding has spent 35 years trying to change the world. He’s served in the Australian military, chased nuclear armed aircraft carriers in small inflatable boats, plugged up industrial waste discharge pipes, been global CEO of Greenpeace, taught at Cambridge University, started two successful businesses and advised the CEOs of some the world’s largest companies.

From his website about this ted talk: “Although I’ve done a hundred or so public talks around the world in the last few years around my book The Great Disruption , speaking at the opening session of the annual TED event is an experience and opportunity like no other. Another speaker backstage, feeling similarly hyped about the opportunity, described it to me as being like ‘the world series of public speaking’!
.

.

For me the pressure was really on because I was going into the lion’s den of “techno optimists” – those who believe that technology can solve everything. My message is a tough one for this audience – that sure technology will do wonderful things for us, but the reality is we are going to face some very difficult consequences of our overloading of planet earth and its too late now to stop those consequences. I argue strongly that humans are amazingly capable and will recover from this inevitable crisis and indeed in the end build a stronger and happier society.

My focus in life is to motivate and inspire people to act on the urgent challenges of climate and sustainability and it is a real honour to speak to the TED crowd. This passionate and engaged community has an amazing capacity to make a difference in the world with their creativity, influence, innovation and entrepreneurship, so I was delighted to make a contribution in the opening session.”

Paul is confident we can get through what’s coming and says rather than the end of civilization, this could be the beginning! He argues we will rise to the occasion and see change at a scale and speed incomprehensible today, but need to urgently prepare for The Great Disruption and “the end of shopping”, as we reinvent the global economy and our model of social progress.

.
.

Sobering reality, and yet we are not alone.
We have each other.
EcoFairfield 2012 team
Serve. Connect. Inspire.
Because our locals are awesome!

So what is EcoFairfield, anyway?

Howdy! Welcome to our blog.
Whoever you are you’re part of our community, and part of EcoFairfield.  Why?  Because to us Sustainability is about inclusiveness–about the interconnected world.  We believe that when the relationships among us (people) and our environments are healthy, mutually beneficial, and strong, we will all enjoy greater happiness, and resilience in every way: ecologically, economically, psychologically, physically, culturally.

EcoFairfield grew out of an annual college EcoFair sustainability conference into the beginnings of a movement to serve, connect, and inspire the citizens of Fairfield, Iowa.  Past EcoFairs highlighted specific aspects of sustainability and aimed to bring sustainability celebrities to Fairfield.  Yet in the process of finding local experts for additional workshops, we realized there is a wealth of knowledge right here in Fairfield.

This year our focus is on sharing the knowledge of local experts, the excellence of local vendors and businesses, and local projects that anyone can participate in throughout the year.  EcoFairfield is more than just an Earth Day weekend conference.  April 20-22nd is an opportunity for us to join together in hands on community service, to learn and celebrate, to build relationships with local and regional mentors, to delight at what is possible during the EcoJam Fashion show, to connect with green jobs, strengthen local economy and volunteerism, and to plug-in to city-wide energy efficiency efforts to save on personal utility bills.

EcoFairfield is a growing collaboration of the city of Fairfield, Fairfield Public Library, Iowa State Extension, Fairfield Volunteer Center, Maharishi University of Management, MyLocal Cooperative, the Dharma Foundation, the Bonnell Building Project, and Fairfield Rotaract.  All community members and organizations are invited to participate and join the organizing team.  We look forward to participating in the Alliant Energy Hometown Rewards Program launch also taking place Earth Day Weekend.

So what is EcoFairfield, anyway?
It depends. What do you want it to be?

EcoFairfield 2012
Serve. Connect. Inspire.
Because our locals are awesome!

To keep on with EcoFairfield’s developments subscribe to our blog!
Connect with us http://www.facebook.com/EcoFairfield
Follow us on twitter http://www.twitter.com/EcoFairfield
Contact Minca Borg (Coordinating team) to learn more, share ideas, or get involved Call 641-233-1138
E-mail borgs108@gmail.com   (expect reply within 3 days)

Or simply just comment below!