Hopedance

The following is a brief speech given at the Party.

HopeDance was an experiment to gather pioneers, visionaries, social justice activists, environmentalists, permaculture folks, spiritual people and other assorted activists. To learn about what their projects were about and to support them, we gave them press coverage, publicity, columns in the paper, workshops and forums to forward their causes, celebrate their successes, publish their writings and musings, and cheerlead their projects. In 1995, I discovered the sustainability movement and saw that it could be the glue to bind all sorts of progressive causes. I was wrong, because after eight years, the sustainability movement is still not that well known, and if it is, it is usually an aberration, being usurped by developers and government officials.

HopeDance was a dream to strengthen the sustainability movement by connecting like-minded people with like-minded projects. Much of that changed with the tragic election in 2000. Now it appears all progressive causes need to do some healthy cross-pollinating to actually strengthen the progressive movement.

Starting our first issue in November of 1996 with a 24-page magazine format with a print run of 500, we have graduated to sometimes 48 pages of tabloid format, printing up to 12,000 copies. We started in SLO and have grown to include SB and Ventura counties.

This could not have happened without the volunteer help of numerous committed individuals and organizations. Today honors these individuals who have helped distribute the paper, write for it, proof read it, help with the film showings and numerous other activities to keep HopeDance alive.

Certain individuals I wish to honor today include:

Selene Anema, who lived with me for almost all of these HopeDance years and tolerated and supported my stubborn passion for seven years. She now lives in AZ.

Rosemary Wilvert, who has tirelessly and dedicatedly proofread most of the copy for the past 5 years. She has also been the poetry editor and has encouraged me to add more poet voices to the mix.

Lauren Sullivan, who has been proofreading for SBarbara and Ventura for the past year and has often helped when Rosemary took a necessary vacation.

John Calvert (JC), who is the webmaster for HopeDance’s website. He has helped enormously with the manifestation of my often clumsy wishes for a dynamic website.

My men’s group (John, Bob and Clark), who have patiently listened to my woes, challenges and fantasies surrounding HopeDance, my livelihood and with the most challenging topic of all: Women.

Wes Roe, HD’s SBarbara and Ventura editor, who collects material from the permaculture folks and other sustainability activists in these two counties. He couldn’t attend our celebration since he is in Croatia for an international conference on permaculture. He emailed me this before leaving: "Please tell everyone how much Margie Bushman and I have appreciated the journey with HopeDance through 6-1/2 years, starting as distributors and then with issue #20 as editors. To us this magazine became a way to connect and build community. Thanks for letting us put together a whole issue, "Permaculture: The Quiet Revolution," and trusting us when we pushed against you to include an article we thought would enrich the magazine. From Magazine to Tabloid to Multi Media HopeDance, this magazine has grown and so have we. With much love and appreciation."

Nancy Ferraro, whom I named the patron saint of petitions, has been a columnist for HopeDance and a remarkable helper with the film showings for the past three years or so.

Mark Philips, who has helped with writing for HopeDance as well as partnering with the film side of HopeDance. His persistence with the campaign to get Democracy Now aired on KCBX has been an example of courage and patience.

A special thanks to George Vye and Margaret Morris who’ve been actively developing more HopeDance readers in Ventura. George must live 24 hours at the internet, since many of his email posts are excellent finds among both the mainstream, world and independent media. Margaret has been working in fiction and writing reviews, and we are discussing doing a special issue on Sci-Fi and Fiction as to how it relates to our coming crisis/collapse.

Dennis Keim, whom some of you know as webfarmer. He has written for HopeDance as well as continually feeding me excellent shorts to be included in HopeDance as well as the listservs. He moved to Nebraska recently.

Wally Stahl, for keeping the HopeDance vision alive by spreading copies to Ukiah and Willits and Anita Stith for spreading it to the Big Island in Hawaii.

Some advertisers who have been with us for years include: Zoe Wells, Halcyon Store, Marilyn Farmer with Habitat Studio, Bill Denneen, the Palm Theatre, Booboo records, Novel Experience, KCBX and others I may have overlooked.

Louis Zimmerman, who has designed the front covers for the past 4 issues.

Greg Junell, who helps with my constant questions on developing a better email announcement system.

Stacey Warde, who has been a constant friend through these many years. We worked together on creating the first supplement a month after Sept 11, 2001. If I ever had the resources to hire someone, Stacey would be first tin line to become the managing editor.

The distributors: Rob & Karyn Kimmel in North County and permaculturists and mini-farmers; Doug Buckmaster in Cambria, Tom Rehkugler in AG who also helps out with my chickens and finds TVs for me from the landfill, Rachel Morris in Ventura, Mark Tomes at Cuesta and Ty Griffin in SLO (who also does other things for HopeDance as well, like bookkeeping!).

Thanks to Branka and Anita, our two ad reps who are stepping down. So if you want a job let me know.

A special thanks to Frank Kahl and Monica Vincent who have been my activist friends and confidants. They have helped in numerous ways in such a short time, since they are relative newcomers to the area. They have formed a group of people to help fundraise for HopeDance as well as being a place to share ideas on how to expand and be more effective as concerned citizens.

Also to the folks who have generously given their food and spirits to this event:

o Tom Neuhaus (Cal Poly professor of food; http://www.calpoly.edu/~fsn/faculty/neuhaus.html) for his fair trade chocolate,

o Eric Michelson from Clark Valley Farm (Los Osos; http://www.clarkvalleyfarm.com) for the organic broccoli and strawberries,

o Clark Staub from American Flatbread Pizza (Los Alamos; http://www.foodremembers.com),

o Frank Kahl (SLO) for donating the Central Coast Brewery Beer (on Monterey street in SLO; http://www.centralcoastbrewing.com),

o Fred Franks from Atascadero for donating the wine,

o the people from SLO Chai (Los Osos), and

o the people from Joebella Coffees (Atascadero; http://www.joebellacoffee.com/aboutus.html).

o And thanks from all of us to Alex Gough from Adobe Realty (http://www.adoberealty.net) for sharing this beautiful garden space.