Seeds of the Story Tree: VBC 18

The baby, Ester Plum, giggled as the dog licked her fingers under the table. Above them, a mostly volunteer crew of a dozen of us were planning for the upcoming Village Building Convergence, now the 18th year of the city wide barn raising event and this year working with at least 50 different communities.

The necessity of this evening’s meeting was to come to consensus on a theme for the 10 day VBC festival. Always a decision by our core planning crew, we think about outcomes and places of growth from previous years, we think of the pressing issues of current events (and pressure is everywhere for our communities!), and we think of the dreams and hopes we have to manifest for a healthy, happy, and peaceful world. Recent years we have explored the sense of Belonging, Home, and Weaving Together.

Facilitating this meeting, I joyfully listened to these wonderful activists weave ideas based on concern for diversity and equity, for honoring indigenous people, and for supporting animal and plant communities. In listing dozens of theme ideas, actions of storytelling and regeneration were common.

Working together we were able to boil down 30 ideas into one theme for VBC 18:

Seeds of the Story Tree

As we are now working with dozens of placemaking communities, this theme will guide some of our discussion as the projects progress to their June implementation. And as we start to plan evening workshops and festivities this energy of stewardship and story broadcasting will be drawn in as a guide.

We look forward to another year of serving communities and bring folks together to share in good work, hear the stories of diverse folk, and work to be consensus building neighbors. If we don’t see you soon, please make sure to join us for this year’s VBC from June 1t to June 10th!

On behalf of my dear friends and badass organizers of the VBC,
Kirk Rea, Co-Executive Director (soon to be completing a Master Recycler course, so ask me waste related questions!)