Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Recap January Veg Meetup

Well folks we had a great beginning to the new year (that's 2007 but who's counting).



After a long holiday break and a slight mental rest from the veg scene to relax during the holidays and spend time with friends, we had a powerful meeting this month on Jan 25th. We hadn't promoted it heavily, so we had only about 12 people, but the quality of the interaction was top notch! Everyone obviously brought their thinking caps and ewe had a group discussion about where the group should be pointed for 2007.

Dill solicited feedback from the group about our restaurant events and how to connect the conscious community in the Sarasota area. Dill discussed compiling a conscious community professional guide, and Mary Lou suggested that someone volunteer to bring a collection of vegan related books and videos to the meeting. We've long discussed having this "lending library" but having it available at the meeting and having someone track the ins and outs would be really helpful. We have the goods, we just need the help. Let us know if you are interested!

Karen informed us that she had a friend who's thesis was on starting a vegetarian cafe, she said she would try and get a copy, as we were really interested in reading it!

Mary Lou also brought up a great idea on a group activity that we really would like to start. She suggested we collect names of people within the group that would like to attend small gatherings of 5-8 people for a veg dinner, perhaps once a month. She called this idea circle suppers and has already submitted some structural ideas and forms to help us get it started - thanks Mary Lou! We'll start taking peoples names who are interested in joining or hosting so that we can get a chance to know other people in our group a little better. Then the names will be selected randomly for the get togethers. I look forward to attending my first one soon!

Also, Dill & I told everyone how excited we were to be attending the Compassion for Animals Action Symposium 1/26 - 1/28. I will blog more about that soon, it was amazing!

Lastly, a cool upcoming event:
Lisa W. is having a huge Yard Sale this Friday and Saturday. Here's the scoop:
2718 Bay Shore Road
Indian Beach/Ringling Museum Area
Feb 2-3
8am-5pm on the Bay in Indian Beach
Something for everyone's budget: furniture, desks, TV, tools, drums, funky stuff, nice clothing,
shoes, office supplies, kitchen gadgets, world music etc...!

See you there!