Tag Archive for 'solutions to celebrate'

Carla’s Journal (9/15/10) – “Solutions to Celebrate”: The Post-Event Reflection!

Good Afternoon, SuperForest!

A couple days ago, I had the pleasure of informing you about the Global ARC’s very first “Solutions to Celebrate” event, something SuperForesters Janice, Keith, Maureen, and I have been planning all Summer. I wrote that post the morning of the event, completely unaware of how it would turn out, but only expecting the very best.

To my extreme happiness, “the best” is pretty much the most appropriate description for how the night would turn out. SuperForesters Iman and I drove down to the UCSD campus a few hours early to help set up. There, we met with SuperForesters Alex, Austin, Brett, and Maureen and soon-after headed up toward the plaza where the event would take place.

Almost immediately, the flurry of action began. We started setting up the tables to prepare for the booths, organized chairs and tables, and even set up the sound system to prepare for the band’s arrival. Iman and Nika would take over the SuperForest booth as Maureen and I would receive and sign in all the guests.

The rest of the evening seemed to whirl by at lightening speed, but amidst the chaos, I felt completely at peace. Friends, relatives, and visitors all came together to celebrate a journey that was months and months in the making. We shared a meal, smiles, stories, and even “ice-breaker tags” that all read the same question: “what makes you happy?” And while most of the people that joined us that evening were strangers, I can honestly say we all left there as friends, united in our decision to view the world as a place full of bounty and potential.

And, of course, we were all united through music. I may be a bit biased, but the last part of the evening, was definitely my favorite. After all the inspirational words of wisdom were shared, SuperForesters Iman and Mo took the stage (as pictured above) and introduced the two performers that would be playing for us that evening, Seth Pettersen and Tall Tales. We met Seth and Trev at Lou’s Records a few months ago along with their manager, Tim, and were able to catch a very impromptu interview with them after their performance there, but on Sunday, we were able to spend a little more time with them and understand how kind and how genuine these gentleman really are. Put simply, their music is rad, they are rad, and if you haven’t done so by now, you definitely owe it to yourself to check both Seth Pettersen and Tall Tales out.

To give you a little taste, here is a playlist of what we were able to catch of the concert part of the event on Sunday. In it, you’ll find a heart-warming husband-wife duet, a really good Morrissey cover, and the last video even shows a tiny bit of the dance party that started up at the very end.

And to flip through more of the pictures, you’ll find an entire flickr set, here!

A big thank you to everyone that helped make this event the success it was, and another big thank you to all of you at home that kept up with this project and sent us all your well wishes and happy thoughts.

Love,
Carla

Carla’s Journal (9/12/10) – “Solutions to Celebrate”: The Journey of the Global ARC 2010

(click to enlarge)

Good Morning, SuperForesters!

I can’t believe I’m writing this post so late. Well…er, actually I understand perfectly considering I haven’t had any time to do much of anything these past few days besides send tons of email invites, make flyers, make labels, put up posters, find volunteers, etc. But besides a general “lack of time”, which I admit is a rather lame and unoriginal excuse, I feel like a part of me hasn’t chosen to write this post because I simply cannot believe this is actually happening.

The Global ARC‘s end-of-the-journey celebration event is finally here. As in, it’s today…And I really feel like I should be working on something but I wanted to write this first.

As most of you are well aware, over the past several months, I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of my dearest friends on a project of epic proportions. You all know it as the Journey of the Global ARC, a 2,000 mile long journey down the west coast to shed light and experience, first hand, the brilliant sustainable solutions that exist out there to solve some of the globe’s toughest problems. Equipped with nothing more than excitement and dedication, SuperForesters Maureen and I volunteered to help plan and organize the journey.

Put simply, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Our tasks as a team involved planning stops in 18 cities, many rural towns, tribal lands, and hinterlands down the Pacific West Coast, finding a biodiesel/solar powered support vehicle, and organizing meetings with incredible public figures. To most people (including myself, at times) several of these tasks seemed to be creeping into the “idealist” mode but it appears some sort of force outside the real of “normal” was on our side for all of this. One by one, all of these impossible tasks were becoming quite real and quite “possible” before my very eyes, and before I knew it, our Global ARC team was cruising down the west coast, soaking up knowledge and sharing it with all of us back home.

But that wasn’t the end of our story. For Maureen and I, it wasn’t even close. Because we had one more task to accomplish. One that was much greater than any of the tasks we had faced before. We had to put together a celebratory event to mark the end of the journey. A celebratory event for us to share with our friends, colleagues, and loved ones, everything we have learned along the way. Seemed simple enough, right?

Simple? No. A lot of hard work (and fun)? Yes.

For the past several weeks, SuperForesters Maureen, Janice, and I have been working on putting together an event we’d later call “Solutions to Celebrate“. The title pretty much sums it all up, it’s an evening by which we celebrate some of the incredible sustainable solutions we’ve discovered on this journey. We’ll have local organic food available for our guests to eat, several organizations will come and set up booths (Including SuperForest AND SuperForester Tawney and Free the Slaves!), speakers and story telling, and lastly, a musical performance by Seth Pettersen with an opening by Tall Tales! (Yes!) Best part is, this event is totally open toward the public, so if you are in the area and would like to attend, you can find all the necessary information by clicking on this link.

If all goes well, it should be a wonderful evening! And with all of the love and energy and support from friends and family that’s behind it, I can’t imagine it turning out any other way. Because the one thing I’ve “learned along the way” of this journey is coincidentally the same thing I’ve learned time and time again right here at SuperForest (with a lot of your help!) And that’s the power of community and the fact that that contains a magical property that somehow turns the impossible into the possible. Because in the end, despite the fact that planning this thing could be difficult at times, if I had the chance, I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.

I hope each of you have a lovely Sunday,

With so much love,
Carla