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Summer, 2004,Update for Members and Volunteers


Summer, 2004

Update
for Members and Volunteers


SLOW Down*
in Action

Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Ames, Iowa, used the Unplug the Christmas Machine book and study guide for an Advent study. Congregational members met for soup and study on Wednesday nights during Advent, 2003. Participants found the guide to be very helpful in examining current Christmas practices and traditions. It gave married couples help in discussing Christmas spending and celebrations. We were able to share ideas for simplifying the season and ways to keep Christ at the center of our lives. Thank you for offering user-friendly resources!
Pastor Larsen Nelson offers a personal thanks for making her life simpler with such good material!


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Last Spring I led an adult elective study at my church using the book GOD AND YOUR STUFF by Wesley K. Willmer. (Navpress 2002)
It was well received by 15 regular attenders. One class member reduced his number of shirts by 30% in one week when he realized he had 77 shirts of all kinds hanging in his closets. Senior members were very conscious of their need to begin reducing the quantity of the things that stuffed their homes.
I am getting ready to co-lead an elective study on the topic of CREATING A CULTURE OF GENEROSITY. The topic came to my consciousness when reading GROWING UP GENEROUS by Roehlkepartain, Naftali and Musegades. (Alban Institute 2000)
I have also had great pleasure working with the Stewardship Committees in two area churches as we explore concepts found in CREATING CONGREGATIONS OF GENEROUS PEOPLE by Michael Durall. (Alban Institute 1998, reprinted 2000 & 2001)
The latter two books are described at alban.org. So much help just a few clicks away for those of us affluent enough to have access to the Internet. –Brenton Dodge, St. Louis

*SLOW Down is our network of 800+ volunteer Speakers, Workshop Leaders, Event Organizers, Media Workers & Discussion-makers.


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Presbyterian Hunger Program
Celebrates 35th Anniversary


The Presbyterian Hunger Program has been a top supporter of Alternatives’ ministry for over two decades. Read more about the Presbyterian Hunger Program at www.PC-USA.org/hunger.

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Watch for Alternatives’ New Resources


• “The Anytime Game”
• “Carols with Justice” audio music CD
• “Whose Birthday” audio CD
• “More-with-Less Christmas” (gift & newsstand version of “Whose Birthday”)
• “Christmas Campaign Kit” Upgrade
• “Simply the Best: Over 30 Years of Alternatives” CD-ROM, version 3.0

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Yes, YOU CAN make a difference
on the media in your community!


As Alternatives produces more resources electronically -- videos, DVDs and audio CDs, you have the opportunity to get the message of simpler living on stations in your community.
1. Contact your local cable company about carrying our two videos “Break Forth into Joy!” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” on the community access channel. This is normally free. Then help the cable company promote the broadcasts when they are set, to attract more viewers, by including a blurb in your church newsletter or letter(s) to the editor(s) of your community newspaper(s).
You or we will provide VHS tape or a DVD.
2. Contact your commercial and public, secular and religious radio stations about carrying our audio programming. You can help by trying to find “underwriters” or “sponsors.” Look at this list of programs!
“Break Forth into Joy!” (45 minutes or four segments: 15-10-10-10)
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (18 minutes)
“Carols with Justice” (15 vocals)
“Living Simply and Loving It” (5 - approximately 14 minute segments)
“Whose Birthday Is It, Anyway?” 2004 (6 - 28 minute programs)
“More-wth-Less Christmas” 2004 (30 - 90 second segments)
A demo of the latter two programs comes on “Whose Birthday” 2004 audio CD.

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Needed! A few volunteers. Work from home. If you are retired or have the time, Alternatives needs a few volunteers for several hours each week to make contact with lots of folks by phone (or email in some cases). We can match one of our numerous projects to you preferences. If you’ve been looking for a way to help the voluntary simplicity movement, this could well be it. Sorry, no paid openings now.

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Alternatives is a founding member of Simplicity Forum, an international umbrella organization of non-profits, authors, academics and others, all promoting voluntary simplicity. The forum’s newest playful, action-oriented campaign is

Do Not STUFFocate™
Simplify Household
Using Recycled Materials
Visit www.UndamagedGoods.com


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Overcoming the “continuity” problem
of “Unplug” Workshop


If you as a workshop leader want to present “Unplug the Christmas Machine” Workshop on four consecutive weeks instead of one four-hour workshop, you have the “continuity” problem”– not everybody’s going to show up for all the sessions.
Since the workshop builds carefully step-by-step, the solution is our new “Unplug” audio CD. If Ralph knows he’s going to miss session 2, he can borrow the CD from the leader and listen to the appropriate session on the CD and do that session in the Participants Manual before coming back for session 3. Likewise, if something comes up suddenly and Sally misses session 3, she can borrow the CD and catch up before session 4 the following week.
The Unplug audio CD is available 1) with Participant’s Manual for $12, 2) with the book for $20, 3) with the Leader’s Guide for $20, or 4) with the book and Leader’s Guide for $30. Add $5 for binder and tabs for Leader’s Guide.

Whether you’re a workshop leader that wants to be prepared, or a curious person who wants to experience “Unplug” but has no group to attend, get the CD now. Be ready for the commercial Christmas crisis that will happen soon. Immunize yourself and your friends now.

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Alternative Media on DISH

Get 60 channels for about $30 per month on the DISH Satellite Network. Yes, most are conglomerate, corporate, commercial, consumerist crap. Five are really worth the money. Read more about my discovery at http://simpleliving.org/main/InsiderInfo.php
Since subscribing I have a new sense of hope that I did not have watching mainstream media programs.
Free Speech TV is available in over 17 million U.S. homes – airing 24 hours a day on DISH Channel 9415 and part-time on 108 community access cable stations in 28 states. The jewel of FSTV is Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.
Link (formerly World Link); UCTV (University of California); UWTV (University of Washington); and others, such as Research Network, Colours (the only multicultural network) and PBS.

Call Free Speech TV at 303/542-4820 or visit www.FreeSpeech.org, click on “Order the DISH here.” They will have all the current information. TELL THEM ALTERNATIVES SENT YOU (on the phone or in “comments” on the web site) so that they’ll share a bit with us. Do not call DISH directly. DISH does not share.

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board

The Alternatives board and staff paused at the spring meeting for a photo and to honor Sharene Schwarz, our Business Manager, for her five years of service. From left (back) board members Susan Davies, Megan Warns, Melinda Zobel, Charles Dorsey and Dick Keifer, chair. From left (front) staff members Gerald Iversen, Sharene Schwarz and RoseAnn Pridie (a.k.a. Rosie the Clown). Other board members are Bruce Cook, Lou Lotz, Sara Hildreth, Mel Luetchens, Martha Gardner and Andrew Kang-Bartlett.

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Be a Part of The Earth Dome!

Yes, we are now in The Earth Dome. Please consider being a part of Alternatives’ new, humble headquarters. You can assign your donation to our new endowment fund, to one of the special projects at the dome or wherever needed most. Receive special recognition and Thank You gifts. Please be in touch. Maybe you’d care to give a gift membership to a friend or relative.

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Editorial

Toting Water

In the dead of winter our basement drain plugged up. When we used the kitchen sink, a puddle appeared in the basement. When we tried to wash our clothes, the basement flooded. Fortunately the toilets worked.


So, to do the laundry, I diverted the water from the washer into a barrel and then toted the waste water in a big bucket up the stairs and flushed it down the toilet. What an ordeal! But an enlightening one.


One doesn’t realize how much water we use to wash our clothes until we have to carry all that water. This experience not only helped me empathize with those in other lands who most tote their water, but it also made me realize how many natural resources it takes to do our regular chores.


As a family of two, we do one load of laundry per week. It blows my mind to think of how much water a family of four would use, especially one that follows the American dictum that Sparkling White is Better imposed on us by the soap manufacturers. We have a friend who washes every towel after it’s used once. Another family of three does four loads a week! I’ve talked to them about “the tyranny of appearances.” They don’t get it. How they look (and how they feel about how they look) is much more important to them than how much water they use.


Alternatives’ newest service is The Earth Dome, a small, frugal environmental demonstration project in Sergeant Bluff, Iowa. This geodesic dome houses our offices. In addition to our national services, we hope to provide our region with some hope and insight into conservation of natural resources. We plan to accomplish several projects in the next few years:


1. Storage of rain in recycled plastic barrels to water our yard of buffalo grass and our wind break of evergreen trees, and to flush our toilets.
2. Use of alternative energy – solar power–– to pump the water and to light the building.
3. Composting and raised bed gardens of recycled plastic lumber to grow organic vegetables.
4. Solar heat.


Why do we bother with these little efforts when so many people abroad are hungry? We are an educational organization. People need to be shown, not just told, how they can change, how they can make a difference, how their actions affect people around the globe!

If you would like to be a part of these projects, please stop by when you‘re in the Sioux City, Iowa, area. And consider a contribution of any size. For $5000 or more, we would be pleased to name one of our projects, gardens or offices in your honor.

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Page updated 20 February 2013 (19 March 2004)

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