September 11, 2006
Achieving Inner Peace and Harmony in a post 9/11 World. Music, meditation, and inspirational remarks. Hosted by Rev. Keenan Kelsey of the Noe Valley Ministry.
Invited guests:
Ifthekhar Hai of the Islamic Society and Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller of Temple Sherith Israel.
Eryn Kalish of The Compassionate Listening Project will offer a mini-training session. For more information, see
www.compassionatelistening.org
Welcoming Remarks and Insights by The Reverend Keenan Kelsey, The Noe Valley Ministry
Invited Speakers: Souleiman Ghali of The Islamic Society
Rabbi Michael Lerner of The Beyt Tikkun Congregation
Music: Members of The Noe Valley Ministry Choir
Compassionate Listening Training: Rachel Eryn Kalish
September 25, 2006 : Community Building and Union Organizing
An Evening of Community Building and Union Organizing with Lisa Jaicks, Rachel Laws and Michael Miller
Lisa Jaicks is a Hotelworkers Union Local 2/Hospitality Industry Representative, and Director of their Child and Elder Care Plan. She also serves on Supervisorial District 4's Child Care Planning and Advisory Council and is active in neighborhood organizations in Noe Valley. Jaicks also is an organizer for UniteHere, the garment, hotel, and restaurant workers union for North America. UniteHere attributes much of its success to the significant role community plays in its organizing campaigns throughout the U.S and Canada. Lisa first joined the union as a waitress in an organizing campaign at Little Italy restaurant in Noe Valley 23 years ago. She lives with her partner, Peter Gabel, and their son Sam in Noe Valley.
Rachel Celia Laws has worked as an organization development process manager at Pacific Telesis. Her book Neighbors: Celebrating Folks on the Block was a natural progression for Rachel's career, and interest in building community in the workplace After receiving her Masters Degree in Organizational Development at Sonoma State University, she has consulted over the last 10 years in various corporate, small business, and non-profit setting. Since much of her work involved mediating conflict, she became a trained mediator. She believes that small acts of neighborly kindness can change our communities and hopefully the world.
In 1962, Mike Miller became a full-time staff member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and spent several months in Mississippi in 1963. He left SNCC at the end of 1966 to work for Saul Alinsky, dean of American community organizing. In 1972, he became the founding Executive Director of the 34 year-old ORGANIZE! Training Center (OTC), and now has forty-five years of experience in the field of community organizing. Mike's articles on organizing and related subjects have appeared in Social Policy, Dissent, Generations, Socialist Review, the liberal democrat, Berkeley Journal of Sociology, The Movement, Christianity & Crisis, Just Economics, New Conversations, Organizing, The Ark, Boston Review, Living Pulpit, The Sun Reporter and other publications. He just completed a book on the Mission Coalition and serves as editor-at-large for Social Policy Magazine
