First Quarter 2011 Report

From SolSeed

Needless to say, putting out monthly newsletters didn't make it into our plans for the first quarter of 2011. To those of you who have been looking forward to our illustrated updates on how SolSeed is doing, we apologize for the delay. Hopefully this quarterly report will help make up for it.

• We got our first test copy of Happy in the Sun on December 17th, and then spent the past three months trying to find time in our busy schedules to finish the last few adjustments. We'll publish it this quarter for sure--in fact, we just sent off the revised version to get a new test copy on Saturday!

• On January 15th, we held a Music Festival at the Seed Village with the incomparable Lori Henriques, who performed her own songs for children of all ages and accompanied herself on the piano. A good time was had by all.

• We finished up the first SpaceWiki writing contest on February 1st, having gained dozens of new articles on a wide variety of space-related topics by students from five different chapters of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS). The second- and third-place contributors were so evenly matched that we decided to award them each a second-place prize of $300.

• On the weekend of February 5th, we held the fourth SolSeed Open Space unconference, Seed 2011, at Serenity Lodge on the slopes of Mt. Hood. We got to hang out with some wonderful kindred spirits, have fun with the kids, and lay the groundwork for the upcoming Village Building Convergence service project. And everyone got free customizable socks!

• We had an awesome hike in the Columbia Gorge planned to celebrate the Spring Equinox, but it had to be canceled at the last minute because Brandon, Shelley, and Sequoia were too sick to attend. (They're all feeling much better now.)

• The biggest news is also the most recent: this past week, we finally committed to starting the design process for the "Seed Pod," a backyard cottage that will turn Brandon and Shelley's property into the nucleus of a real eco-village! With a little luck, we should have some preliminary concept drawings from Swift Architecture to show in our triple-wide booth at the Earth Day festival on April 23rd.

What else will be involved in this Earth Day booth, you ask? And what exactly are we doing for the Village Building Convergence? Don't worry, more updates are coming soon!

Thanks for reading!
Ben Sibelman