Thoreau Center Brown Bag: Promoting Biodiversity in the Presidio

Promoting Biodiversity in the Presidio
Presenter: Terri Thomas, Golden Gate National Recreation Area 
September 22, 12:30 to 1:30
Pacific Room at Tides, Thoreau Center for Sustainability


Why are the Presidio of San Francisco’s natural habitats, forests, and designed landscapes important to local, national, and international biodiversity? Terri Thomas will discuss the history, the current big picture, and the details of the Presidio's biodiversity. 


Terri’s career has been in the land management of national parks, and she has worked at Yosemite, Crater Lake, Everglades, and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. She is now the Director of Conservation, Stewardship, and Research at the Presidio Trust. She has a BS in Forestry from UCB and a MS in Ecology from University of Washington.


Brown Bag events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk. 

Thoreau Center Brown Bag: Foot Soldiers of Change—The Battle Against Maternal Mortality in the Sierra Madre

Date: Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Time: 12:30-1:30pm

Location: Pacific Room at Tides, Thoreau Center for Sustainability
1014 Torney Ave
San Francisco, CA

Presenters: Arlen Samen, Founder, One Heart World-Wide and Carlos Tapadera Concheño, One Heart World-Wide Country Coordinator

One Heart World-Wide is dedicated to saving the lives of women and children. Founded in 1998 by Arlene Samen, the organization works with disadvantaged communities to raise awareness and teach good birth practices. In the 10 years that the One Heart program was active in Tibet, the number of women who died in childbirth annually dropped from thirty-three to zero. One Heart recently relocated its corporate offices to San Francisco and manages close to $1 million in donations to support maternal-child health programs Mexico and Nepal.

About the presenters:

Arlene Samen has been a Nurse Practitioner in Maternal Child Health for 31 years. In 2004, she left behind her clinical practice to dedicate her life to serving pregnant women living in the most vulnerable conditions in the developing world. In 1997, she met His Holiness the Dalia Lama who asked her to go to Tibet to help the women and children who were dying in childbirth. Arlene spent the next ten years in Tibet working side by side with the local government to bring a safe motherhood project to women who were poor, uneducated, and living in the most remote region on the roof of the world. She brought the "Network of Safety" model to women who face death in order to give life. In 2009, One Heart World-Wide took its life saving model to remote villages in Nepal and to the bottom of the Copper Canyon in Mexico. She has received many awards, including being an "Unsung Herero of Compassion," a CNN Hero and a Rainer Arnhold Fellow with the Mulago Foundation.


Carlos Tapadera Concheño is One Heart World-Wide's in Country Coordinator. He comes to the United States for the first time to share his experiences working with his community. He trains his fellow Tarahumara in the Copper Canyon to raise awareness, teach good practices, train local health care providers and distribute Clean-and-Safe Birth Kits.

Please RSVP to Bruce DeMartini if attending

Brown Bag events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk.

Thoreau Gallery Opening - 30 Years Behind the Easel

An Angel Passes, by Cynda Valle

A Celebration of Our New Exhibition - 30 Years Behind the Easel
Thoreau Gallery, Thoreau Center for Sustainability
Thursday, August 18, 5:00 to 7:00
Exhibition dates: August 18 through October 14, 2011

30 Years Behind the Easel is an exhibition by two local artists: Cynda Valle and Robert Brokl. The show documents the evolution of their craft over time and the persistence of their vision as they grapple with day jobs, the emotional needs of family, and the many ways life, in general, conspires to prevent most artists from making art all together. As economic hardships persist, nonprofits and agencies that might otherwise support artists instead strive to plug the rent “safety net,” and governmental programs like the New Deal's WPA are lacking. Artistic sustainability over time is a challenging business — and noteworthy when it succeeds. Cynda and Bob believe having fellow travellers helps.

Garden II, by Robert Brokl

Thoreau Center Brown Bag: Top Ten Fundraising Tips

Presenter: Darian Rodriguez Heyman, Editor of Nonprofit Management 101
Wednesday, August 17, 12:30 to 2:00
Pacific Room at Tides
RSVP to bruce@thoreau.org

You dream of a strong, vibrant community and have a sense of how to make it real. But how can you rally the funds you need to connect your vision to action? Join the former Craigslist Foundation E.D. and Editor of the newly released handbook, Nonprofit Management 101: A Complete and Practical Guide for Leaders and Professionals, as he shares practical, tactical solutions from his new book that can and will help you get dollars in the door. Darian will provide concrete tips and tools for individual giving, foundation grants, corporate sponsorship, earned income, and online and peer-to-peer campaigns, plus point you in the right direction for more information.
After five years of service, Darian recently stepped down as Executive Director of Craigslist Foundation. While there, he helped launch Nonprofit Boot Camp, the Environmental Nonprofit Network, and the Next Generation Leadership Forum. His new book, Nonprofit Management 101: A Complete and Practical Guide for Leaders and Professionals, includes practical tips and tools from 50 recognized experts across 35 topics, and he recently launched a nationwide Social Media for Nonprofits conference series and his Advancing Social Impact blog on Skoll Foundation’s Social Edge. Heyman previously served as a Commissioner for the Environment for the City and County of San Francisco and currently is a public speaker who provides strategy, messaging, and fundraising consulting for nonprofits and green economy organizations.

Thoreau Center Brown Bag: The End of Growth & the Birth of ???

Presenter: Author Richard Heinberg

Thursday, July 28, 12:30 to 1:30

Pacific Room at Tides, Thoreau Center for Sustainability.

Join us for a discussion with Richard Heinberg, author of The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality and Senior Fellow of Post Carbon Institute. We all take economic growth for granted...until it falters, as it did in 2008. But what if the recent meltdown was not just an interruption in the story of continuous economic expansion, but the first intimation of the end of growth as we know it? Will a convergence of financial disruption, resource depletion, and environmental impacts create "Business as Unusual?" We know that traditional economic growth models do not reconcile the best measures of human health and welfare. So how can social change advocates and philanthropists prepare for -- and thrive in -- a future that is not based on assumptions of cheap energy, reckless consumption, and financial speculation? How can we decouple qualitative progress — in education, arts, health, well-being, freedom, happiness -- from ever-expanding consumption and growth?

Thoreau Center Brown Bag: EQUAL Health Network

Health Care Reform - Why Social Justice is the Best Medicine
Presenter: Joe Brenner, EQUAL Health Network of the Center for Policy Analysis
Wednesday, July 20 - 12:30PM to 1:30PM
Pacific Room at Tides, Thoreau Center For Sustainability

Joe Brenner of the EQUAL Health Network/Center for Policy Analysis will discuss the latest developments on health care reform and how they affect access to quality, affordable health care in our communities, from Vermont to California.

The EQUAL Health Network brings together partners from public health, women’s health and the public to advocate for Equitable, Quality, Universal, Affordable – EQUAL – health care.

Update: This event has been cancelled and will be rescheduled for a later date. Stay tuned.

Brown Bag events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk.

Thoreau Center Brown Bag - Rights-Based Approach to Environmental Justice

Presenter: Desmond D’Sa
Wednesday, June 22, 12:30P to 1:30P
Pacific Room at Tides, Thoreau Center for Sustainability

The South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) is organizing across the historic racial divisions of its communities to speak out for environmental justice at local, national, and international levels. Begun in 1995, SDCEA is a democratic coalition of members of communities who have come together to bring higher environmental standards to the industries and communities that cohabit South Durban.

SDCEA takes a rights-based approach to environmental justice and works to empower community members, especially women and youth, to engage in environmental issues and fight against man-made climate threats.

Desmond is currently the SDCEA Coordinator, and a coordinator of the Right2KNOW Campaign, a national campaign against the draft secrecy laws such as the Protection of Information Bill and the Media Appeals Tribunal. Desmond is a tireless campaigner and also serves as the Coordinator for the Durban Social Forum and sits on a number of activist boards and church organizations. As a key organizer and leader of the South African climate justice movement, Desmond is uniquely positioned as a spokesperson for grassroots organizing currently taking place in Durban to protest the upcoming UN summit on climate justice, in November/December 2011.

Brown Bag Events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk.

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New Exhibitions in Thoreau Center Galleries, June 16 through August 12

Exhibition dates: June 16 through August 12, 2011
Opening reception: Thursday, June 16, 5:00PM to 7:00PM

The two new exhibits are:

Constructs

In the Seed Gallery of Photograph Art, photographer Tony Maridakis displays his nocturnal images drawn from iconic structures such as the Presidio Battery West and DeYoung Museum.

synthesia natura

Bay Area artists Cathy Richardson and Anneliesse Vobis will construct a science lab in the Thoreau Gallery. Their exhibition explores fascinating forms of calcification as a result of environmental degradation, expressed through books, assemblage, digital media, and video.

Thoreau Center Lunchtime Speaker: Mark Brilliant, UC Berkeley

The Color-Line Problem

Presenter: Mark Brilliant, Professor of History, U.C. Berkeley

Thursday, May 19, 12:30P to 1:30P

Pacific Room at Tides, Thoreau Center for Sustainability, Presidio Building 1014


Join us for an engaging discussion about the history of race and civil rights reform in California. This talk presents an overview of Mark Brilliant's book, The Color of America Has Changed: How Racial Diversity Shaped Civil Rights Reform in California, 1941-1978.

The book taps California’s civil rights history to reveal how the Civil Rights Era was truly a nationwide and multiracial phenomenon. Brilliant examines how California’s multiple “race problems” shaped and complicated the multifaceted efforts of civil rights reformers. While civil rights historians have long set their sights on the South and, more recently, turned their attention to the North, advancing a “long civil rights movement” interpretation, The Color of America Has Changed calls for a new understanding of civil rights history that more fully reflects the racial diversity and accompanying civil rights complexity of America - a civil rights history that is as "wide" as it is "long." Mark Brilliant is Assistant Professor of History at UC Berkeley.

Events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk.

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Kaua'i Island's Strategy for Sustainability Master Planning

Kaua'i Island's Strategy for Sustainability Master Planning

Presenter: Professor Ed Quevedo, Presidio Graduate School & Paladin Law Group LLC

Thursday April 28, 12:00PM to 1:00PM

Pacific Room at Tides, Thoreau Center for Sustainability | Free Pizza Lunch

Join us to hear about Paladin Law Group’s pro bono work with the Hawaiian garden island of Kaua’i. Kaua’i is rapidly becoming a center of excellence in sustainable community design. Ed Quevedo will be discussing Paladin Law Group's work advising Malama Kaua’i in the design of master planned community strategies for the island. Malama Kauai is an organization that strives to create a Kauai where the `aina (environment) is healthy, people enjoy a high quality of life, the sense of community is strong, and culture is respected and perpetuated.

Brown Bag events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk.
Contact Us | Transit Directions | Newsletter

New Exhibitions for the Thoreau Center Galleries

Join us in celebrating our new exhibitions in the Thoreau Gallery and Seed Gallery.

Opening reception: Thursday, April 7, 5:00PM to 7:00PM

In the Thoreau Gallery: six Bay Area artists explore wood as a medium for making art. Their investigations include highlighting wood in its natural condition, making whimsical contraptions, and exploring the inherent qualities of the material. Exhibiting will be Larnie Fox, Joshua Greenberg, Mark Brest van Kempen, Al Honig, Mike Kendall, Bernie Lubell

In the Seed Gallery: photographer Sid Hollister will exhibit his images of the Montezuma Hills, near Rio Vista, almost 400 square miles of Sacramento Delta farmland under development pressure from power windmills and housing subdivisions.

Thoreau Center for Sustainability
The Presidio of San Francisco Building 1016
1014 Torney Avenue (at Lincoln Boulevard)
Gallery Hours: Monday to Friday, 9AM to 5PM

Salon Thoreau - March 24

Join the Thoreau Center tomorrow for the inaugural Salon Thoreau, featuring writers, performers and filmmakers presenting their art in a supportive and spirited environment.

Thursday, March 24.
Reception starts at 4:30P. Performances start at 5:00PM
In the Thoreau Gallery

Our performers include:

Robert Molossi | short theatrical performance
Henry Navarro | short film
Elissa Perry | reading from her novel
Clare Ramsaran | poetry reading
Shizue Seigel | poetry reading
Tatiana Tilley | vocal performance

Celebrate Earth Day at the Thoreau Center

April 22: Celebrate Earth Day at Thoreau Center

Sell, share, display your crafts
Or set up an information station
Or raise money for a charity

Friday, April 22, 11:30A to 2:00P

To reserve a table, please contact Bruce DeMartini.
No charge for tables. This is a public event, so invite your friends and family.

Bruce DeMartini
Program Manager Thoreau Center for Sustainability, San Francisco
[t] 415.561.7823 [f] 415.561.6401
bruce(at)thoreau.org
www.thoreau.org

Salon Thoreau

Salon Thoreau invites artists of the Thoreau Center community to participate in our first (but not our last!) salon event. We would like you to:

• Read your poetry/short story/creative nonfiction piece
• Share your drawings/photography with us
• Show a video/film you have made
• Put on a short Dance or theatrical performance
• Other (Explain)

Guests from the Thoreau Center community are encouraged to participate. We would especially like to hear about work that focuses on:

• Our democratic ideals of opportunity and freedom of speech
• Sustainability
• Racial justice
• Civic engagement
• Celebrating the life and work of Henry David Thoreau

Salon Thoreau will take place in the Thoreau Gallery. The first gathering is scheduled for Thursday, March 24, 4:30PM to 5:30PM. Snacks and beverages will be provided.

Performances should be no longer than 3-5 minutes. We welcome you to participate as a performer. If you wish to perform, please contact bruce@thoreau.org before March 18th stating what format your contribution will take, and give us a couple of sentences describing your performance.

What is a ‘Salon’? From Wikipedia

A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine the taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to please or to educate" ("aut delectare aut prodesse est").

Bruce DeMartini
Program Manager
Tides | Thoreau Center for Sustainability
o. (415) 561-7823 f. (415) 561-6401
www.thoreau.org, www.tides.org

Thoreau Center Midday Reels presents Entre Nos

Wednesday, February 16 12:30pm - 2:00 pm Pacific Room at Tides, Thoreau Center for Sustainability

Join us for Midday Reels, featuring the award-winning film Entre Nos. This film traces the story of a family struggling to survive and make a permanent home for themselves in the United States. Despite grueling challenges, this mother’s courage and imagination offer hope. The film is based on a true story and should spark more dialogue about immigration reform. The Center for American Progress, America’s Voice Education Fund, and Reform Immigration for America have all supported this film.

Film Synopsis:

Mariana (Paola Mendoza) is determined to keep her family together. Her children, Gabriel (Sebastian Villada Lopez), 10, and Andrea (Laura Montana Cortez), 6, have grown up in Colombia without their father. He immigrated to the United States years earlier in order to make a better life for his family. Finally after many years of separation the family is reunited in New York City.

After coming home late from work one night Antonio announces he has found work in Miami and will be moving there…alone. He will send for the family when he is settled.

Days go by and Mariana does not hear from him. Worried and desperate, she goes to her only friend’s home only to find out Antonio is not coming back. The rent is due, there is no food on the table and Mariana has fifty dollars to her name. With no one to turn to, she must find a way, in a strange city where she barely speaks the language, to provide for her family, financially and emotionally.

Mariana makes homemade empanadas (meat patties), which she tries to sell on the streets, however this quickly fails. With all options closing in on her, Mariana turns to the city’s trash, collecting cans in order to put food on the table. With Gabriel and Andrea working beside her, the family finds the most stability they have known since their arrival, and it is during these challenging moments that the family triumphs.

In entre nos, Mariana, Gabriel and Andrea take us on a remarkable journey where we bear witness to a family’s commitment to survival and their unrelenting hope for the American dream...one soda can at a time.

Midday Reels events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk.

Thoreau Center Brown Bag: A Strategic Approach to the Fiscal Crisis of California

Presenter: Lenny Goldberg, Executive Director of the California Tax Reform Association (CTRA)
Wednesday, February 2, 12:30pm to 1:30pm
Pacific Room at Tides, Thoreau Center for Sustainability

Lenny Goldberg will address the ongoing fiscal crisis of the state of California, where the government must operate within the limitations of its existing property tax regime. A major challenge is confronting the irrational and dysfunctional commercial property tax, which costs our cities, counties, and schools billions of dollars each year and makes little sense as law, economics, fiscal policy, or land use. Lenny will describe the California Tax Reform Association's long-term strategy to expose this problem and make it so apparent that a solution can be achieved.

The mission of the CTRA is a fair tax system in California, in order to provide the foundation for a healthy public sector and a successful economy. Founded in 1976, CTRA has been involved as an advocate for fair taxation in virtually every major tax policy debate in the legislature and at the state tax agencies. It has also been involved in many statewide ballot measures involving tax policy, and have provided our expertise in many forums, presentations, articles, and in the media.

Brown Bag events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk.

Thoreau Center Galleries New Exhibitions

Thoreau Center Galleries Opening Reception
Thursday, January 20
5:00 - 7:00 PM

Two new exhibitions running January 20 to March 18, 2011 in the Thoreau Center.

In the Seed Gallery, photography exhibition Winged Neighbors: Birds of Crissy Field & the San Francisco Marina. Local Photographer Rucha Chitnis explores the diversity of birds that live and play along the shores of the Presidio and Marina, revealing this rich habitat for nearly 200 species of birds. 10% of all photography sales will go to Nature in the City, a local organization that promotes awareness about San Francisco's rich biodiversity, connects people with nature where we live, and restores wild habitats.

And in the Thoreau Gallery, six artists come together to explore physical, biological, psychological, and metaphysical meaning in nature. Artists include Leigh Barbier, Bodil Fox, Sheila Ghidini, Elizabeth Medrano, Elaine Michaud, and Patricia O' Connor.

With a special live performance by the Crank Ensamble.

Thoreau Center Brown Bag: Cancun, Report Back

Wednesday, January 12

12pm - 1pm

Pacific Room at Tides

Climate talks in Cancun reach agreements. What's next? Hear from four organizations who were on the ground in Cancun advocating for change.

Representatives from the International Forum on Globalization, the Ruckus Society, La Via Campesina, and the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative will present their report back with a Q & A to follow.

Brown Bag events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk.

Thoreau Center Brown Bag: Housing Rights in South Africa

Presenter: S’bu Zikode, founder of Abahlali baseMjondolo

Wednesday, November 24, 12:30PM to 1:30PM

Pacific Room at Tides

Join us for a discussion with S’bu Zikode, founder of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the South African shackdweller's movement.This movement began with a road blockade that grew quickly and now has tens of thousands of supporters from more than 30 settlements, making it the largest social movement led by the poor in post-apartheid South Africa. Abahlali baseMjondolo is at the forefront of emerging global struggles for the right to housing and to development rooted in justice and democracy.

Brown Bag events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk.

Thoreau Center Brown Bag: Greening the Main Post

Join us for a lively discussion about the many improvements planned for the Main Post, in the Presidio. Learn more about plans to improve parking while creating a more pedestrian-friendly park. Over the next few years, the Presidio Trust hopes to reopen the Presidio Theatre, provide more public programs and build a lodge for overnight guests and daily visitors to the park.

Wednesday, November 17, 12:30PM to 1:30PM

Pacific Room at Tides, Thoreau Center for Sustainability

Presenters: Tia Lombardi, Director of Public Affairs; Michael Boland, Chief of Planning, Projects and Programs; John Fa, Main Post Coordinator

Brown Bag events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk.