March 2009 Archives

About ten people met for dinner on Wednesday, March 25 at Midori's Floating World Cafe.  It was a small turnout, but appropriate considering the small size of the restaurant.  Our server brought out the all-vegan menu (there was only one, so we had to pass it around) for us, which contained a respectable selection.  Most people seemed to order either some sort of tempura or the vegetarian sushi dinner.  Everyone seemed to enjoy their food.  No complaints.  We should consider having more dine-outs there in the future.  

Hey all! Just getting fired up about the upcoming April book club. It will be April 1st at Fast & Furless, 6 PM.

Greetings,

The times they are a changing here at the literature distribution campaign. After much talk, finagling, discussion, estimation and evaluation; we have decided to start stocking our Vegetarian Starter Kit stands with literature from Mercy for Animals. The VSKs from MFA are more in line with the values of CAA. There are also more recipes available and the overall layout is better. We will be returning all of the outdoor VSK stands to PETA so that they can re-use them in their ongoing campaign.

Unfortunately, this could leave us without a way to have literature available at places like bus stops, pedestrian malls and street corners. We are currently looking at all available options for replacing the outdoor VSK stands. If anyone has any ideas or information about where we can get outdoor literature stands, please email me at matt.schmittdiel@exploreveg.org.

The TLOV conference is right around the corner and a block away. It would be awesome if everyone who is able to can help advertise for this event. There are beautiful posters and cards available in the office. They can be placed just about anywhere from signposts to store windows to bulletin boards. Either stop by the CAA office or contact Susan Crane at susan.crane@exploreveg.org to schedule a pick up time.

-Matt Schmittdiel

Jeden Leben ist kostbar - Every life is precious.

There's so much going on, I'm not sure where to start! We have the banquet planning on full swing. People can RSVP here. Amazingly, we have nearly 80 people signed up so far, which is better than ever. We're looking for lots of volunteers, especially servers, so please send folks my way. Mindy, Dave, Anu, Suzy and I are working on this.

As you may have heard from Ivan, we will (almost surely) get funding from U of $15,000 M student fees next year. This is fantastic. Check out the final recommendations and rationales. Because of an existing budget deficit as well as no longer being eligible for certain funding, we don't have a lot of new money. But, we have more of the funds that we need to keep things going.

We have the service to do athletic fund raisers, and have one person signed up, and another committed.You can sign up right now, pass the word on, or let me know if you have questions.

Our annual report is moving along, so expect news on that in a few weeks. We'll print out a fancy copy, but you can see the electronic version here. Thanks to Brock for putting that up.

Hey, all! Just a note to say that, since the Google calendar is public, I will no longer be posting event addresses when they're at people's homes unless I know that we have express permission. If you have an event you would like posted that is at someone's home, please let me know if we have permission to post the address. Thanks!

Hello everyone

As we celebrate Bridges Of Respect's merger as a CAA program this month we're also celebrating it's 10 year anniversary! Over the last decade the program has provided over one thousand presentations in schools throughout the Twin Cities and St Cloud reaching students that number in the tens of thousands.

High schools have been our most common venue and colleges second most. We've also recently tailored two of our presentations for middle school students. I'm proud to say that we often get invited back to a classroom once we've presented there once but, sometimes teachers switch programs that were our way in or aren't doing a debate theme that they were doing before, some teachers switch schools or careers all together, some retire and so forth. Keeping our presentations requests on the incline is an ongoing challenge and something we can always use help with.

Lately, we've been ramping up the Bridges Speakers Bureau to help make it easier for more people to get involved in presenting as well as, with the program in general. We meet about once a month to discuss the program's progress, practice presenting or watch others to provide feedback, and help hone people's presenting skills. Bridges has its own rapport where we log teacher and school information as well as, history entries of completed presentations. Bridges also has an email list to keep you updated on what's going on and its own wiki complete with presentation outlines. If you would like to get involved with Bridges as a presenter or to help with everything else that makes the program successful like compiling teacher email addresses, promotion, etc drop me an email: shannon@urth.org

 

We have a new Google calendar contact: me!  If you have events that you'd like added to the calendar, let me know: susan.crane@exploreveg.org.  Please include as many details as possible, including an end time as well as a start time.  I check the following sources for calendar items, so there's no need to contact me directly if your event is already posted on/mentioned in one of these:

• the events calendar on our website
• our e-newsletters
• meeting minutes:
  
• board meetings
• fundraising meetings
• weekly planning meetings
• banquet meetings
• TLOV meetings
• community meetings
• email lists:
• weekly planning meetings
• community
• TLOV
• leafletting
• dine-outs
• Vegan After Dark
  

Check out the calendar.

Welcome to the first office update blog entry!  We're having too much fun over here!  The office is a busy place these days, with up to four people at a time scheduled for office hours.  There are four of us here at this very moment, but the student groups area is unusually quiet because of spring break.

For those of you who have never had the good fortune to see the office, let me paint you a picture: let's call it "cozy".  In addition to lots of stuff such as tabling and other outreach supplies, we have four work stations (essentially computer + chair), lots of literature, our own library with DVD's and VHS tapes in addition to maybe 100 books, and a nice view of downtown Minneapolis and the sky.

For those of you who have been here, there are a few changes at the office recently.  We have two new computer monitors, and things have been re-organized and labeled, allowing us room for the donated microwave and little fridge!  We also have two more chairs for those of you who feel like stopping by.  So stop by!

Lastly for today, if anyone knows of any potted plants that are free to a good home, we could use a few more!  Let me know: [susan.crane@exploreveg.org](mailto:susan.crane@exploreveg.org).  I meant second-to-lastly, because lastly, I'd like to ask y'all for any suggestions you might have for the office.

Recently CAA has leafleted at three concerts! The Killers concert went well; Ivan and I were able to brave the January cold and get out 150 leaflets. I attended the Lenka concert with two friends, Mallory and Gabe, and after the concert we handed out 150 leaflets. The band members came out and were really supportive of what we were doing and asked for leaflets and advice for being vegan on the road. One band member even bought us vegan pizza! A week ago Danielle, Lauren, and I leafleted at a Christian event called Acquire the Fire. We were able to hand out 300 leaflets and will receive a $36 donation from the Christian Vegetarian Association.

We are starting College Leafleting. Fred Tyler will be leafleting at many colleges in Minnesota over the next two weeks, and it would be great if anyone could join him. If you would like to receive more information, please contact me at carolyn.soley@exploreveg.org!

Hello!  Lately, the Writers Group has been posting some wonderful comments online in response to articles relating to factory farming.  In addition, I've been working on restructuring the Writers Group's approach to outreach and education, and will begin giving fun (and important) writing assignments to interested volunteers.  We will be contacting publications, companies, law makers, and others.  I've also begun networking with organizations including Compassion Over Killing's Writers Group (to see how they do things) and MN Voters for Animal Protection.  If anyone has any ideas or suggestions for creative ways to get the word out, please do not hesitate to contact me at kristine.volovsek@gmail.com or volo0012@umn.edu.  Please also email me if you would like to join this wonderful and rewarding campaign!  Writing is an amazing, peaceful approach to opening the eyes of others :)

We had a good time at Kilimanjaro Cafe, with about 20 people showing up.  I was a little worried about having to turn people away because many RSVP'd, but only about half ended up coming, so it was fine.