Ashland Community Action Wants You!
malena@riseup.net, 13.01.2004 12:50
Ashland Community Action is an email listserve designed to foster networking among community members in the upper Bear Creek Valley. If you want to send or receive important email announcments on issues affecting the social and ecological vitality of this region, please join up!
Hello Friends,
This is an invitation to join the Ashland
Community Action email listserve. If you are already a subscriber, I urge you to pass this email invitation along to your local friends, neighbors and coworkers, as well as any local listserves you are involved with. Please read on to find a link to the ACA webpage, and an impassioned letter from me about why you should participate!
The ACA listserve was started 3 years ago to foster networking in our community. To read the original mission statement please see our homepage :
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/ashland-community-action
Since this original description was written, the threats to our schools, watershed, local quality of life and sense of community have only grown more serious, both locally and globally. At the same time, we have continued to envision and work towards a vital local economy, rooted in ecological restoration and social responsibility. It is clear that the solutions to the issues we face together as a community and as a culture are readily available to us -- if only we will organize and work together.
As we have seen with the tremendous success of Moveon.org, those seeking positive change are numerous enough to make a difference. It is high time we took advantage of our true majority in this community.
Though we may not all agree on all the issues, I think that by virtue of committing to making this valley our home, we have some powerful things in common. We appreciate clean air, beautiful mountains, community values, a safe and healthy place to raise children. Maybe most importantly, we want to live in a place that is a reflection of our uniqueness and diversity, rather than the flavorless homogeniety of the latest corporate chains and marketing hype.
If we want to preserve and enrich the distinctiveness and vitality of Bear Creek Valley communities, it is essential that all of us reach within ourselves to find the time and space for taking action. We have never faced threats so severe -- for our children's sake, we cannot afford to keep believing that others will take action for us.
The ACA listserve is meant to empower each of us with information and announcements that link us with the issues we hold valuable. I do my best to make sure that all emails appearing on the listserve are relevant and concise, and am renewing my commitment to moderating in a manner that is easy on the inbox and supports a diversity of viewpoints.
Please feel free to email me with questions or comments, I am open to re-articulating the ACA vision, etc. to reflect what is most important to everyone -- including folks I may not have talked to yet. I can also help subscribe people, if you are not able to do it from the webpage.
If you feel hesitant about joining another listserve, I suggest giving us a try for 30 days. If you don't like it, unsubscribe. My guess is that you may find it a source of hope in bleak times, that you may enjoy the feeling that you are not alone.
Finally, remember that you ARE Ashland Community Action. You can receive announcements AND you can send them! Trust me, it feels good to take your involvement to the next level : )
Thanks so much for your time, and please, pass it along.
Malena
______________________
Malena Marvin
Freelance Worldsaving
Ashland Community Action
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/ashland-community-action
Again and again some people in the crowd wake up,
They have no ground in the crowd,
And they emerge according to much broader laws.
They carry strange customs with them
And demand room for bold gestures,
The future speaks ruthlessly through them.
-Rainer Maria Rilke
e-mail:: malena@riseup.net
Homepage:: http://lists.riseup.net/www/review/ashland-community-action