ROP’s 19th annual Rural Caucus and Strategy Session is on Saturday, May 12th with early bird registration ending Friday, April 13th!
As you may have already heard, this year’s Caucus is being held at PCUN in Woodburn, the heart of the farm worker movement in Oregon. It will be a fantastic opportunity to reflect on all that’s happened over the past year and plan for the future. A lot has happened since we Foreclosed on Greg Walden’s office in Bend at last year’s Caucus, and you won’t want to miss this year’s featured keynote: an interview between ROP Founder Marcy Westerling and PCUN President Ramon Ramirez!
This year, ROP will offer our Rural Caucus & Strategy Session on Saturday, May 12th from 8:30-5pm. In addition we are organizing a series of activities before and after. See the schedule and download a copy below.
Register for the Caucus and events today. Housing is available for those planning to stay in Woodburn Friday or Saturday night. Some of the events (like the tour with PCUN) will have limited space, so think about which events you would like to attend and register soon! To register, click the link below to download ROP’s 2012 Caucus registration form and mail it back to us. We will follow up with a registration packet and logistics details in the next few weeks.
Hope to see you there! Don’t forget to get your registration in by the early bird deadline of April 13th!
2012 Caucus Flyer
ROP’s 2012 Caucus Registration Form: Word Doc Version, PDF Version
Rural Caucus and Strategy Session 2012
Schedule of events for the weekend of May 11-13th
Friday, May 11th
Farmworker tour with Ramon Ramirez of PCUN (2pm-5pm): Woodburn is rich with movement history. This tour will take you from the PCUN farmworkers hall, to the Radio Movimiento community radio station, to learning about the struggle to obtain farmworker housing with dignity.
Viernes Comunitario (6pm-8:30pm): Every other Friday, PCUN members gather at PCUN to discuss a topic relevant to the community. On May PCUN, they’ll open their doors to us to join them in in this grassroots event. We’ll start with a short film about one of the earliest civil rights movements in the country, and then move into an open discussion looking at the links between our struggles of today.
SATURDAY, MAY 12th – CAUCUS DAY!
Rural Caucus and Strategy Session (8:30am–5pm): Our chance to look back on our last year – what we have accomplished, what has changed in our political climate – and we strategize for the year to come. Join us for strategy sessions on Occupy Rural Oregon, creating Welcoming Communities, saving Rural Post Offices, election planning and more. There will be time to share strategies across communities and skills to build our organizing impact. Our Caucus keynote this year will feature a dialogue between ROP Founder Marcy Westerling and PCUN President Ramon Ramirez.
Celebration (5:30pm-bedtime): We have a lot to celebrate from the past year – from the birth of the Occupy Movement, to our local organizing efforts to build relationships and make change in our communities. Join us for a delicious vegetarian Mexican dinner, music, and dancing to Latin rhythms, hosted by our friends at PCUN. This is a party that you won’t want to miss!
Sunday, May 13th
Occupy Rural Oregon Breakfast (8:30am-10am): Join rural Occupiers from across the state in a conversation surrounding how we can support each other, build rural power, and what unified tactics and strategies could look like.
CAPACES work party (10:30am-1pm): The CAPACES Leadership Institute (CLI) is scheduled to open in the summer of this year. CLI is an enormous achievement of our friends in the mid-Valley farmworkers movement. We’ll spend the morning getting our hands dirty, and helping bring the Institute one step closer to Inauguration Day. Learn more about the CLI here: http://www.pcun.org/gallery/87