Learning Community Planning Meeting

Are you seeking:

• a common place to gather as a community outside of our homes?
• a rhythm, over a day, a week, a month, a growing season?
• a place for children and adults to be enriched, to learn and grow?
• a way to contribute and to give to the community?
• a support network of other respectful, compassionate families?
• a way to work together to meet our needs, collaborate?
• a way to actively celebrate the community we are over the long term?
• a place to share resources (childcare, money, clothes, food, knowledge, skills)?
• a place to learn new skills that suit the place where you are now?

When: Friday, March 27, 10 a.m.- noon
Where: Liberty Hall, 311 N. Ivy St.
Goals: Understand our common needs and determine if we want to extend our lease at Liberty Hall for April and May.

Childcare is not provided, but children are welcome. Potluck lunch to follow at noon. If you cannot attend but still wish to participate, please take this survey.

Open to all families who are interested in sharing a physical location in NE Portland for compassionate and joyful discovery and growth from the inside out. This continues to be a space for children and adults to connect respectfully with oneself, others and the larger community, and to work together to meet our needs.

Here are ways to participate:

• attend the meeting
• take this survey
• pass this invitation on to other families who might be interested

Parenting From the Heart Support Gathering

For those parents who want to connect and brush up between sessions, and scope out the location for the following three workshops, come to a free potluck lunch and parent gathering.

When: Friday March 27, 12-2

Where: Liberty Hall, 311 N. Ivy

Child care is not provided but children are welcome. There is a big space with toys to play indoors and out.

If you have not already signed up for the class but want to, contact Kristen, 503-335-2717.

Free Play Days at the CLC in March

The Continuum Learning Community is sponsoring a special community building series through Insideout Schoolhouse Mondays and Fridays in March at Liberty Hall, 311 N. Ivy Street. Be part of the group and create our next steps together. Explore ways that we can connect and meet needs. Bring projects, needs and plans to share. Come ready to be a mentor, a learner and a collaborator. Bring food to share for a potluck lunch. We’ll be there from 10 am to 2 pm, with morning meeting shortly after 10 and we’ll gather for lunch around noon. Childcare is not provided, but let us all care for each other.

The Insideout Schoolhouse is a neighborhood-based organization in NE Portland where we work together to meet our needs. It offers support to people of all ages who want to learn and grow freely and joyfully.

For more information contact Kristen, 503-335-2717.

Parenting from Your Heart- open for registration

Saturday mornings, March 7, April 4, May 2 and May 30
9 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Location  in NE Portland TBA with registration. For more information or to register and reserve your space, call (503.335.2717) or email Kristen McKee or send in this form.

Children and babes in arms are welcome to attend as long as it doesn’t interfere with the presence of others’ participation. Childcare is available in an adjoining space.

Attendance is $40 per session per adult, or $150 for the whole series, a valuable investment toward more peaceful relationships in your own life, and participating in the larger community. Advance registration required because of class size limit. We want everyone who wants to attend to be able to do so. If funds are an obstacle please let me know how we might work together to meet our needs.

This event is supported by the Insideout Schoolhouse, the Continuum Learning Community and Bay Area NVC. A description follows:

PARENTING FROM YOUR HEART
A workshop series offered by Kristin Collier

Our children are so important to us, yet sometimes we struggle to parent in ways we feel truly good about. Participating in these parenting workshops, you will explore how to:

• Understand the needs behind your children’s behavior.
• Parent effectively without relying on the threat of punishment or the promise of reward.
• Transform power struggles into opportunities for building connection and trust.
• Discover a quality of connection that will sustain your family through life’s challenges.
• Contribute to peace by raising children who can make peace.

This introductory series on compassionate parenting will be taught by parent and teacher, Kristin Collier, from Eugene OR. Kristin has been studying Nonviolent Communication intensively in leadership programs for six years and sharing it nationally and internationally for four.  Her greatest teachers are her five and eight year old sons. Kristin’s classes are enjoyable, satisifying and tailored to the needs of the attendees.

The Garfield Planting is ON!

Thanks to the support of Friends of Trees, and the strength in our own hearts we’re going to go ahead with a planting of our block. I’ve already ordered the trees: 4 crabapples, 1 apple, 2 cedars and one oak. The total is $374.92 and neighbors have already donated $120 of that.  We still need more donations to meet the total, and we need volunteers, and a pick up truck for planting day, February 14. I’m going to a meeting tomorrow evening to learn about the Vision into Action grants, and am also trying to learn how City Repair can support us as we continue to make our block a particularly wonderful place.

Trees, NVC and Potlucks

Here is the latest news at Insideout Schoolhouse:

There seems to be a lot of interest in the NVC Parenting workshops with Kristin Collier. There will be four classes, once a month on Saturday mornings, beginning the first week of March. Classes are $40 each, or $150 for all four sessions with pre-registration required. Childcare will be available. The Albina Head Start declined our request for use of space (even though we offered parents and teachers free attendance at the workshops). As soon as I can find a location I’ll send out more information.

I was just notified by the Northeast coalition of Neighbors that we were not chosen to receive a grant for our planting project. They did, however, say that it was a great project and we were right at the cutoff. They said it might have helped if we had more representation at the neighborhood meetings. I have 48 hours to figure out if we should still go ahead with the Friends of Trees planting and where we might get funds or materials to do so. The Head Start did offer the use of their parking lot on Saturday February 14, if we’d still like to celebrate something there. I’d appreciate any feedback you have on this.

Earlier this month our cedar tree fell in our backyard and landed on our neighbor’s roof. Our insurance was of no use to us. No one was hurt. We now have lots of sunshine in our back yard and have learned a lot about that tree and the others remaining in our yard. Thank you Ismael, Benno and Margaret (and my in-laws and their chipper) for helping us take it down. Does anyone know where we can find a portable mill to make a “treehouse” out of the remains?

In the past few months we’ve had just one or two families attending the Caring Parents meetings at North Portland Library. It seems like the park days or other outings much better meet the needs. Unless I hear back that there is interest in this I’m going to let go of the regular potlucks.

My son, Julian, after experimenting with food and a video camera over the past 6 months, has been written up in the Oregonian, the Toronto Star, the Sunday London Times, the Irish Examiner and Portland Monthly. We’ve been fielding calls for appearances on the Today Show, Rachel Ray, and even an offer for travel, lodging and performance fees if he would “perform” at a mall in Hong Kong. This, coupled with the fact that the inaugural quartet totally faked it, has left me gaping, incredulous and taken my skepticism and awe of the media to new heights.

On a lighter note, we’ve also had the pleasure of seeing the Continuum Learning Community come to life. I am so delighted that there are so many families interested in supporting each other in this way, and grateful for the skill and effort that Heidi, Emily and others have put into it. (And I’m glad that it is in NE Portland!).

As for me, I’m feeling a little sad today amidst all this, having a hard time getting my needs met- for peace and compassion in my neighborhood, for learning freely, for joy and delight, for honesty, and for knowing that I am a valuable part of the community. I am grateful though for life’s instruction, and hopeful that somehow this weird project will lead me to the place I need to go. Maybe I’ll see you there too.

Happy New Year

We are all so happy to be back amid this wonderful community. Upon our arrival, and the demise of our tree, we are reminded of the wonderful neighbors that surround us.

Thank you for all the input on the parent workshops with Kristin Collier. Looks like it is a go. We will post specifics soon.

Save the day: February 14, for the Garfield Tree Planting. More information to follow soon.

Also for something delightful in the meantime check out Play After Play’s new production:

THE CURING FOX
a Native American story
Jan 10 – Feb 1
Saturdays at 10am and Sundays at 2pm
At The Brooklyn Bay, 1825 SE Franklin, Bay K
Admission $7 /ticket – children under 2 free
For reservations call 503-772-4005
Or email melanya@brooklynbay.org

Parenting with NVC Opportunity- Help needed!

Hello friends and parents,

I need your input on an upcoming opportunity.

Listening to conversations out there I’ve heard an interest in ways to deepen relationships with our children and to deal with the times it is difficult to connect with our kids.

I’ve found what I think is a very useful resource that I’d like to share with you. Kristin Collier is an instructor of “Parenting with NVC” out of Eugene, Oregon. I attended one of her workshops at a conference in Eugene earlier this year and found it very worthwhile.

Kristin is a parent herself, a good listener, knowledgable on the subject of non-violent communication, and uses real life examples of those in the class to work through situations.

I’d like to invite her to Portland to offer some parenting workshops. I’m currently looking for a location and some interested parents who’d like to attend.

Here is what I’m currently thinking of offering:

Series of 1, 2, 3 or 4 workshops (depending on interest)

• Introductory Parenting with NVC series (usually 3 sessions)
•  “Playing with Violence” (1 session)

Though it would be preferable, it wouldn’t be required to attend all the sessions. Sessions would be 3 ½ hours long at a location in inner NE Portland, probably on a Saturday morning or afternoon, once a month, beginning in February.

Children would be welcome to attend as long as they didn’t interfere with other attendees partcipating in the class. Depending on interest I would also consider arranging childcare in an adjoining area.

Tuition is on a sliding scale with no one turned away for lack of funds. Requested donation would be somewhere between $25 and $50 per three hour session, with advance registration to hold a space since there is a limited class size.

For more information about the classes, see below. Could you please reply to me by December 31 if possible, and let me know if you are interested, if you have any experience with nonviolent communication (NVC), and how this opportunity might best work for you? I would really appreciate your feedback so we can create something that will meet all of our needs.

Thank you!
Kristen
http://insideoutschoolhouse.wordpress.com

Introductory Parenting with NVC series
Instructor: Kristin Collier
The core curriculum used in this program was developed by Inbal Kashtan who wrote Parenting From Your Heart. Our children are so important to us, yet sometimes we struggle to parent in ways we feel truly good about. Participating in these parenting workshops, you will explore how to:

•  Understand the needs behind your children’s behavior.
• Parent effectively without relying on the threat of punishment or the promise of reward.
• Transform power struggles into opportunities for building connection and trust.
• Discover a quality of connection that will sustain your family through life’s challenges.
• Contribute to peace by raising children who can make peace.

Chef Julian in the Oregonian

Have a look at Chef Julian’s appearance in the Oregonian.
Ok, with a few edits, I’m not a librarian, I wouldn’t strictly label ourselves as unschoolers and what Julian actually said was “That pretty pulverized it!” But I really do like persinnamon smoothies. Happy Holidays friends!

Kristen

Potluck reminder

Last potluck of the year!
Tuesday, December 9, 5:30 p.m. at the North Portland Library on Killingsworth. Bring a dish and some toys to share if you wish.

Also here’s an invitation for anyone who craves more words from me, to visit my blog,

  and an invite to see a few photos of breakfast at the Schoolhouse and a field trip to the park.