9:30am to 11:00am
CSI Annex, 720 Bathurst Street

The Metcalf Foundation’s Inclusive Local Economies Program invites you to an event in celebration of the release of a new publication: The Power of Civic Action: How the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee revitalized their park and created an engine of grassroots economic activity.

The Power of Civic Action tells the story of how — over the past eight years — the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee overcame barriers to create an inclusive, local bazaar and food market in their park. As a result, not only have they been successful in supporting micro-entrepreneurship but they have also created an engine of economic, environmental, and social change for their community.

This is a free event but, as space is limited, you are asked to please RSVP

Register for The Power Of Civic Action

In conjunction with the release of The Power of Civic Action, this event will include a lively panel discussion featuring four leaders on issues of neighbourhood economic resiliency and micro-entrepreneurship.

Sabina Ali, Chair of the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee, will speak about how the Women’s Committee nurtures micro-entrepreneurship through their bazaar.
Robyn Hoogendam, Coordinator of Research and Community Development at The Learning Enrichment Foundation, will share challenges low-income entrepreneurs face and strategies to reduce barriers.
Howard Tam, Principal and Founder of ThinkFresh, will speak about the challenges facing micro-vendors and ways to create enabling conditions.
Nirvana Champion, Economic Development Officer with the City of Toronto, will talk about the city’s policies and initiatives to support micro-entrepreneurs.

The discussion will address challenges and opportunities for supporting low-income entrepreneurs and micro-entrepreneurship in our city. Following the panel discussion there will be time for questions and answers.

If you have questions, please contact Metcalf Foundation's Inclusive Local Economies Program Director, Adriana Beemans, abeemans at metcalffoundation.com.

Download The Power of Civic Action report

Food Secure Canada's Assembly in 2016 will be in Toronto in partnership with Ryerson University, Toronto Food Policy Council, Sustain Ontario, FoodShare Toronto, Community Food Centre Canada... and a growing numbers of partners.

The 2016 National Assembly will mark 15 years since the idea of Food Secure Canada emerged at a conference held at Ryerson University.

Its time to celebrate! Stay tuned for details in the coming months.

Video from Food Secure Canada's 8th National Assembly, Waves of Change: Sustainable Food For All, November 2014.

Have a look at the 8th Assembly held in Halifax in 2014

community_engagement_the_next_generation.jpg

Paul Born, Louise Merlihan and Rachel Gainer will lead this three day workshop that explores the latest thinking and practice of Community Engagement.

You will learn the latest engagement techniques and interact with the technology that will transform how you engage your clients, customers, funders and partners. Through dialogue with leaders in the field of engagement and social change, you will enhance your capacity to effectively hear the voices of those you serve and learn key strategies to mobilize them toward a collective impact.

Together we will explore and learn to apply:

• A toolkit for Community Engagement practices
• Proven techniques that companies have been using for years to increase customer loyalty
• Systems change theory and the role engagement plays in building movements for change
• Engagement technologies and the amazing power these have given us to listen to and communicate effectively with large groups of people

For a closer look at the workshop agenda, please visit our Agenda Page.

Register for Community Engagement: The Next Generation

The Next Generation of Community Engagement

Engagement expectations have changed and yet many of the same community engagement techniques we have used for years are being deployed, often with minimal results. We need a new generation of tools and practices to inform, consult and involve people in building better communities.

New Expectations

In our cities and communities, a new generation of community engagement is emerging. People demand to be engaged in decisions, they expect to work together and they want better outcomes for themselves and their neighbours. They believe by working together they can achieve a collective impact.

And yet people are less involved than ever. Fewer people are volunteering, fewer people are voting, fewer people belong to service clubs, churches and voluntary networks.

How do we resolve this profound paradox? People demand to be more engaged and yet they are less interested in being involved and contributing to outcomes. What are we missing?

Technology Has Changed Everything

Every minute of every day our email inbox is filled with people and companies trying to engage us. We are riveted to Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and the multitude of apps available to help us “stay in touch” and to get the latest news.

Technology engages us. We are entertained, moved, connected and involved daily. Technology also distracts us. It is easy to become overwhelmed, unfocused, overcommitted and exhausted by the constant stream of stimulation and requests. It is getting harder to break through and to engage people so that they will read our social media posts and online newsletters, fill in the surveys we send out or to buy our products and ideas online.

How Do We Respond?

There are, of course, no simple answers. First, we want to explore and learn to apply the proven techniques that companies have been using for years to increase customer loyalty. We also want to better understand how systems change and what role engagement plays in building and sustaining movements for change. Most importantly we want to increase our knowledge of technology and the amazing power it has given us to communicate regularly and effectively with large groups of people.

9am Pacific Time | Noon Eastern Time

Join the Real Economy Lab, the Next System Project and the New Economy Coalition for an interactive webinar discussion on mapping the next system.

The inability of traditional politics and policies to address fundamental challenges has fueled an extraordinary amount of experimentation, generating increasing numbers of sophisticated and thoughtful initiatives that build from the bottom and begin to suggest new possibilities for addressing deep social, economic and ecological problems. Thus we encounter the caring economy, the sharing economy, the provisioning economy, the restorative economy, the regenerative economy, the sustaining economy, the collaborative economy, the solidarity economy, the steady-state economy, the gift economy, the resilient economy, the participatory economy, the new economy, and the many, many organizations engaged in related activities.

There are calls for a Great and Just Transition, or for reclamation of the Commons. Many of these approaches already have significant constituencies and work underway. Creative thinking by researchers and engaged scholars is also contributing to the ferment. Although they vary widely in emphases and approaches, there is a good deal of commonality. These movements seek an economy that gives true priority to people, place, and planet.

Taking the next step in collective development will require better information on the array of organizations and initiatives active in this space as well as efforts to identify potential areas of cooperation and collaboration. Beyond that loom questions of scale and replicability. The Real Economy Lab (REL) has been surveying the landscape and identifying the linkages and is seeking to provide an interactive platform where the cumulative knowledge, aims, and resources of these movements can be drawn together in order to seek common ground and drive coordinated action.

In this webinar REL will present their work to date and invite you to join them and a panel of leading thinkers and practitioners in discussing these issues. We will hear about the work of REL as a connector of change makers in the next economy space, working to raise awareness and understanding of new economy theory and practice and help connect the thinkers and doers in this world for collaboration and movement building. REL will explain its theory of change and unique role in this evolving new economy ecosystem and walk us through one of their core tools, the mindmapping of the next economy ecosystem.

Register for the Mapping the New Economy webinar

Participants will also discuss questions that explore the value of mapping the next system:

1. Problem statement – What are the leading / recurring challenges in organizing more coherent effort and coalition building within and across this movement? What are the obstacles / challenges that crop up?
2. Underlying causes - What do we have in common? What principles, values and alternative economic paradigms motivate our actions, and where are we ultimately aligned? How do we talk about this more openly?
3. Solution framing – How can people and organizations build on one another’s efforts and collaboratively work towards a more capable, credible, and coherent movement for systemic change? What are leading theories of change?
4. Solution space – Where are we seeing inspiring or illustrative success stories and convergences underway in the movement? How can we measure progress and promote positive outcomes?
5. Improving the odds – How might the work of REL better support practitioners and thinkers in the next economy world? What tools, data, or support are missing from the system we all work in?

Featuring Moderator:

Gus Speth, Co-chair of the Next System Project

Panelists

• Michel Bauwens, P2P Foundation
• Ferananda Ibarra, VillageLab / Metacurrency Project
• Michelle Mascarenhas Swan, Movement Generation
• Jules Peck, Real Economy Lab
• Ed Whitfield, Fund for Democratic Communities