2nd Annual Canning Workshop

Jars provided, bring your own veggies, no experience necessary, Sunday, November 23, 2008, 3:00 – 6:00 pm.  Space is limited. Fee: sliding scale $2 – $5. Contact Jessi Lyons (315) 420-4521 jel264@cornell.edu.

Syracuse Grows Canning Workshop:
Come learn the art of canning. No experience or supplies needed. Syracuse Grows is a grassroots network cultivating a just foodscape in the City of Syracuse. We provide programming, education, and teaching .Kitchen is at Lyman Hall, Rm 229 College Place, Syracuse University.

Directions:
Lyman Hall is on College Place, near the intersection with University Place. There is a Centro stop on College Place and
parking is available is the Ostrom Parking Lot on the corner of Ostrom and University Place (across from The Thornden Park Rose Garden). From the parking lot, walk down University Place to College Place, Lyman Hall is on the right.

2nd Annual Harvest Dinner

You are invited to join Syracuse Grows and Slow Food CNY at a Potluck Dinner on Sunday, October 18, 3–6 p.m.
The Assumption Church Parish Center, 800 N. Salina Street, Syracuse. Enter green doors on Catawba Street
Please RSVP to Paul Mercurio 845-216-8586 or earthscape@gmail.com.

Bring a homemade dish to share. Try using local ingredients from the farmers’ market, your garden, or your CSA!
Share recipes. Learn gardening techniques. Hear about Syracuse Grows and Slow Food CNY activities. Get involved.
For more information about Syracuse Grows, visit www.syracusegrows.org. To learn more about Slow Food CNY, visit www.slowfoodcny.org

Upcoming CNY Speaks Forum

It gives me great pleasure to announce our next forum — 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 27, at Sophistications Jazz Cafe, 441 S. Salina St., in the heart of Downtown Syracuse. All three remaining candidates for mayor of Syracuse have agreed to participate. The venue is a bit smaller than our previous locations, and we expect a big turnout, so please register now to ensure yourself a spot and to help us adequately plan for the event.

Register by responding to this email with your name and the names of others that will be attending with you. Or, you can call me at 315-730-4621. You can also email CNYSpeaks directly at cnyspeaks@maxwell.syr.edu. As always, the event is free and open to all. Please help spread the word.

The October 27 event will be CNYSpeaks seventh forum on the topic of improving Downtown Syracuse, and it will continue to utilize the CNYSpeaks’ technique of facilitated, small-group discussions. Yet the forum will be quite different in both format and substance from our previous events. CNYSpeaks spent more than a year focused on identifying problems Downtown must overcome, as well as strategies for improving the city center. That conversation unfolded at our first five forums and on the CNYSpeaks blog. It also was informed by research from the Maxwell and Newhouse schools, journalistic articles in The Post-Standard, and a series of public surveys.

On Aug. 30, CNYSpeaks published the Citizens’ Agenda for Downtown Syracuse, a distillation of the conversation meant to guide policy makers working to improve our urban core.

On Sept. 8, nearly 200 citizens packed the Hotel Syracuse’s Persian Terrace and spent an hour discussing the Agenda in small, facilitated groups, with a focus on forming questions to ask the six candidates for mayor. The mayoral candidates then joined the discussion, fielding questions from citizens for two hours. The idea was to help familiarize citizens and candidates with the Agenda, to keep the improvement of Downtown as an issue in the campaign, and to begin to see how the candidates differed in their approach to bettering the city center.

Now we’re down to three candidates who will face off against each other in the General Election on Nov. 3. One will emerge as our next mayor. As such, the time has come to make direct comparisons between the candidates on how they will work to improve Downtown.  That will be the focus of the Oct. 27 event, which starts promptly at 6:30 p.m., with the doors opening at 6.

Instead of deliberating in small groups first as we have done in the past, we’ll start with the candidates, letting them talk about their strategies for improving Downtown, and following up with questions from citizens and from Maxwell Political Science Professor Grant Reeher, co-director of CNYSpeaks. After we’ve heard from the candidates and they have answered your questions, participants will then begin the deliberative part of the forum. You’ll work in groups to identify how the candidates differed in their approach to improving Downtown, exploring which is most effective.

It’s a format that should distinguish this CNYSpeaks’ forum from the others, while continuing to build on the work done by citizens at past CNYSpeaks’ events. Please participate and help us spread the word. The event is free and open to all — past participants and new ones, city residents and suburbanites.

Light refreshments will be served. There is ample free parking on the street that time of night. The Galleries Garage, located right next to Sophistications (http://www.sophisticationscafe.com) will be open as well. The cost is $6 a car.

Please register now, and don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions. I can be reached at gregmunno@msn.com, cnyspeaks@maxwell.syr.edu and at 315-730-4621.

For more information, you can also visit http://blog.syracuse.com/cny-speaks. This entry — http://blog.syracuse.com/cny-speaks/2009/09/now_it_gets_serious.html — gives you a little more information on the Oct. 27 event, as well as links to the Citizens’ Agenda, the candidates’ Web sites, and information on our previous events.

Syracuse Grows community garden event

Help Grow Community Gardening in Syracuse by joining us this Saturday, April 25th, 2009.
Resource Drive: 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m and Garden Cleanup 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Bring donations to Lipe Art Park, W Fayette St., near S Geddes St. All new and gently used gardening tools are greatly appreciated. Donations should be clean and in good working order. Monetary donations are also welcome! Make checks payable to Syracuse Grows.

We hope to see you on Saturday with what is shaping up to be the largest community gardening event Syracuse has ever seen!

Needed
Tools and equipment…
Shovels, pitch forks, hoes, trowels, metal and plasti c rakes, pruners, scissors, loppers, hedge clippers, wheelbarrows, rototi llers, push mowers, hammers, nails, screws, nuts, bolts, handsaws, and childrens Read more

Toddler Cafe’

Hi Everyone!

One of my best friend’s from High School, Jennifer Carden, wrote this great nutritious cook book for parents and kids: Toddler Café: Fast, Healthy, and Fun Ways to Feed Even the Pickiest Eater.  Thought I’d share it with the moms and dads in our network.  She also has a great blog as well. Enjoy!

Jenny Skates
E-mail me

Happy New Year everyone!

This is a reminder that on Wednesday, January 14, 2009, we will be holding our monthly Conscious Creators meeting at the Dewitt Library (Shopping Town Mall) from 7-9pm.  This month, we are delving into the “Physical” pillar of Harmonic Wealth.  This  pillar encompasses anything and everything tangible – the physical world as well as the physical body.  Discussions and activities, designed to inspire you to take care of yourself and your environment, will be led by our very own Randall Skates.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Jenny Skates
E-mail me

Quoth the Raven(s)

From the huge windows of our new apartment, Randall and I have noticed an interesting and curious phenomenon.  It’s a daily Raven Party in our backyard!  Every day, between 4:30 and 5pm, the tree in our backyard fills with a hundred or so ravens.  In our neighbors’ trees, there are hundreds more.

We’ve had several conversations about it and have begun to make some observations:

• It fluctuates slightly, but the daily arrival time remains constant at around 4:30-4:45pm.
• It seems to be more of a social gathering rather than a meeting of any sort.
• Everyone is talking at once and it takes 10-15 minutes for everyone to arrive. Read more

Positively Poetry

Just a little reminder that a group of us are meeting next Tuesday, October 21st at 7pm at the Manlius LIbrary’s Bookmark Cafe for some frighteningly fantastic poetry.  Bring your own spooky poems and some of your favorites by published authors, too.  All are welcome.

See ya then!

Jenny Skates
E-mail me

Unwinding at home

Maybe you’ve had a stressful day and you’re looking forward to unwinding at home?

Imagine this:

You arrive at your sanctuary (home) and start a warm bath, adding some Effervescent Bath Cubes and grabbing your Sugar Body Scrub.  Next, you gather a few candles … a Hinoki Steam jar candle, Read more

Dream Board Workshop Invitation

Please join the our group Conscious Creators at this fun workshop on Wednesday, October 8th at 7pm at the DeWitt Library in the Shoppingtown Mall. We will provide poster board, glue, and lots of magazines Read more