Happy New Year!!! Our monthly meeting is Wednesday, January 4th at 6:30pm at the Graham 70th Avenue Fire Station.
It is that time of year to be thinking about and planning this year’s gardening.
To quote a portion of an email from Deej:
“ Lastly, it is time to sit down with seed catalogs and decide what we will plant this coming spring.  I have some things I stick with from  year to year, and then I always want to try something new.  Most of  those new things don’t work very well, but a few work well enough that  they later become part of my yearly seeds.  It would be nice to  cooperate with a few other people on the “experimental” seeds…then  we can each try several new things at once instead of only one or two. Maybe we can ask everyone to bring their seed catalogs for comparison  and cooperation?”

And so it will be!! Bring your seed catalogs if you have any, and join us!! This meeting is for everyone, even if you’ve not gardened in the past. Or rather, ESPECIALLY if you’ve not gardened in the past, as nothing shouts out Self-Reliance like the ability to grow some, most, or all of the food you eat.
We will also be showing a short video on Open Sourced Blueprints For Civilizations.
As always, bring anything you’d like for our monthly raffle, and as we have no formal speaker for this meeting there may be time for any “show and tell” you might like to bring.

“Our went off yesterday without a hitch. If you could not join in we missed you. Andy Anderson told wonderful and interesting new history stories of the greater Graham area and the food was delicious. Our 2011 volunteer sign in has almost 100 names! If you were not able to pick up your volunteer award certificate I can e-mail it Or if you want to join these forces let us know as there is a lot of work that needs to be done.  Statistics show WA state volunteers are worth $22/hour. Recognizing that many of you contributed more than 10 hours each you can think of this as a $22,000 contribution to south Pierce Cty. Sadly I read in the TNT one day last week that 1/2 of the Tac. security fource is in jepardy of loosing their job but the new coach at WSU was awarded an $11,000,000 contract! YIKES!”

Holly adds: This is great-Carol always goes above and beyond!

Celebrations are in order for this month so everyone is invited to bring a dish for our HOLIDAY POTLUCK. Remember to bring your own plates, utensils, and drinks.

Don’t forget to bring something to raffle off. The money goes for much-needed supplies (mailing, printing, etc.).

“Thousands of Americans have begun affirming a new direction for the economy.  It’s called Slow Money.”

“Inspired by the vision of Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing As If Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered, published in 2009, the Slow Money Alliance is bringing people together around a new conversation about money that is too fast, about finance that is disconnected from people and place, about how we can begin fixing our economy from the ground up… starting with food.”

The “Slow Money” Movement May Revolutionize the Way You Think About Food

We have a speaker coming from Everett to give us a presentation on “SLOW MONEY”.

Take a look at this video- Inspired by Slow Money.

From: *******
To: *******
Subject: FW: EP & Resource Fair Oct. 22
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:24:55 -0700

Good Evening Everyone,

I have some very important information to share with you regarding an upcoming Emergency Preparedness Fair. Jeanne Pestinger has put together and outstanding forum for you to learn how to take care of yourself during any kind of an emergency. Believe me, our country has seen more than our fair share of emergencies, just this year. Please consult with the attachments that have been provided for you to see what has been put together. There is something for everybody.

You don’t have to live in Orting to attend this Community Resource Fair. So spread the word among your family and friends and drop by. It is being held at the Orting Middle School, 111 Whitehawk Blvd NW, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Saturday October 22nd.

So, mark your calendar and drop by. You won’t be sorry.

Have a good evening.

Sam Colorossi

Bring “extras” from your harvest to show off what you accomplished and perhaps trade with someone else who has too much of something different. (Of course, canned food, baked goods, crafts, and so on are welcome to trade or for the raffle).

Holly adds: this was in a nice PDF format but unfortunatly wordpress does not convert this type of file easily into something that is readable. I have already sent out the meeting notice to members and so I will just post it here.

Who ever sends out the notice, should also send one to David Hymel .
Is the fire station reserved?
Tx, Karelina

(Holly adds: currently there is no one who sends the meeting notices out. Wayne sent me the meeting info to be posted on the website. He included some of the new members too to receive the information. I will send out a notice to David if I have an idea of what to send. Whoever made the reservation for the room needs to send me the details. I also wanted to mention that only about 30 of you receive this notice so it does not go out to everyone. That is why I tried to encourage everyone to sign up to receive these notices so they would be included in the info loop.)

Presentation Title: Rain Gardens – A Sound Investment

David Hymel is co owner of Rain Dog Designs, specializing in sustainable landscaping services and a special focus on rain garden education, design and installation. David and business partner Marilyn Jacobs started Rain Dog Designs in 2009, in anticipation of a growing market for sustainable landscaping and rain garden installations. We have worked on rain garden education and installation projects in collaboration with several
jurisdictions and organizations in the Puget Sound area including: Seattle, Puyallup, Burien, Federal Way and Eatonville, Friends of the Cedar River Watershed, Stewardship Partners, and Sustainable Seattle. Rain Dog Designs has collaborated with these and others to install over 145 rain garden projects in the past 2-1/2 years.