Building Sustainable Earth Community

In order to keep everyone involved in our conference planning, we have decided to post the results of our decision making on an ongoing basis on both our mailing lists and our www.bseckc.org website. So if you miss any of our mailings, you can always keep up by going to our website..

It has been confirmed by the soon to be retired Provost at Kansas City Kansas Community College that they will indeed sponsor Sarah Rush the Co-author of Timeless Treasure and the Great Grand Daughter of Booker T. Washington as the keynote speaker at our January 8 & 9, 2010 Breaking The Silence conference. We are honor for their sponsorship and their willingness to co-produce the conference itself. Finally BSEC will have some additional support during the planning phase.

So far we have
Steve Collins KCKCC Brenda Sanders BSEC
Penny Mchan KCKCC Marilyn White BSEC
Marisa Gray KCKCC Deron X BSEC
Roger Suggs KCKCC Janet Moss BSEC
Karen Hernandez BSEC
Dana Freeman BSEC - Chairman of Conference Planning Committee Richard Mabion BSEC - Founder

Anyone who would like to participate, please contact
Dana -- dana_f@sbcglobal.net
there always room for more. We will be following the same format as before. Registration will begin on Friday January 8th, 2010 at 5:00 PM

Instead of beginning our program at 6:00PM, we will use that time to begin with an opening social hour, so people can meet and greet one another as registration is concluding.

We are looking for a sponsor to pay for this particular activity. We would like a cash bar serving locally produced beverages along with locally produced finger food. Please contact us if you are interested in helping us with this sponsorship.

We will begin with some kind of opening ceremony at 7:00 PM follow by our open performers. We are once again planning on some kind of open dialog to close out the evening. We will conclude the opening night by 10:00 or 11:00 PM (depending on how the open dialog evolves) Saturday’s program is still being designed, but we have decided to make as many workshops or classroom sessions as possible available. We want people to get upset because there are 2 or 3 sessions they would like to attend that are happening at the same time. We want this to be an Environmental Educational experience. There is no limit to what we will try to provide. So once again, if you have a subject you would like to present, please contact our chairman. As it is now the following subject have been scheduled. 1. Spirituality and its affects on the Environmental movement, pass the word Spirituality are my words to give an idea of what we are looking for.
2. Sustainability
a. KCKCC
b. Wyandotte High School
3. Health
a. 3 possible so far
4. Urban Farming
a. 1 so far
5. Water Issues
a. 1 so far
6. Green Building Techniques
a. Bill Hanlon (Flint Hills Institute)
7. KCKCC Tech Center - Retrofitting techniques
8. Steven Ogendi Bee Keeper from Kenya

There is still time to submit your subject. We will give updates, but we will not cut off request for classes until we are ready to print our programs. Sessions will be scheduled for both the morning (from 10 to 11:30 AM) and the Afternoon (2:30 to 4:00PM). So the more the merrier. Just looking at the list, I am sure you can see subjects that are not covered. This is your chance to shine. Please we want educational session, and not advertisements for your business. We will serve one major meal, and the head chef at the Reardon with locally purchased food will prepare it. Getting that kind of commitment from the Reardon is a major accomplishment.

Sarah Rush will deliver her Keynote address around 12:45 with the possibility for questions between 1:30 and 2:00 PM. We have decided to once again put as many as possible vendors inside the main ballroom. We have some details to work out, but generally we are in agreement. We will also be using both the upstairs as well as the downstairs of the Reardon. So we will have much more room for vendors. As usual we will have our art walk for local artists too. So both vendors and artists can begin to sign up. Again contact Dana and she will direct your concern to the appropriate person.

Our cost will remain the same. This goes for sponsorships also. (see our www.breakingthesilence.us website for details)

We have had some talk about some kind of interactive activity, along with time for small group discussion. So we still have our work cut out for us. I feel we have made some progress and at least have some directions. Any suggestion that you may wish to submit, please feel free to do so.. We have not talked about music, but I like the idea of roving musicians who blend in with our art walk people. We always have our BSEC adopted band of Ricky Dotson and Bobby Adams. But if you are interested, let us know. We are still open to design. We plan to end this year on Saturday with our local band closing us out from 7:00 until 9:00PM.

We are also working on a special session or time for vendors. Sometimes Saturday between 4:00 and 7:00 PM. The only other note is that we want to involve the black student unions from every college within 100 miles of Kansas City, Kansas. We want them to host Booker T’s Great Grand Daughter at a brunch on Friday afternoon. So if you have any advice of how we can contact such a group, will you please let us know?

Thanks and out!
Richard Mabion
www.breakingthesilence.us
913-481-9920