June 10th, 2015
Dear ROPers and friends,
Our big weekend is almost here! We cannot wait to be in the same room, strategizing, celebrating, and reflecting alongside you and your group!
If you have not registered yet, please do so ASAP so we have enough meals and materials for everyone! A limited number of scholarships are still available to rural organizers traveling more than 50 miles to attend!
In this email you will find:
Dates, times, and locations for our entire weekend of events
Driving directions
The agenda for our main event: the Rural Caucus & Strategy Session on Saturday!
If you signed up as the lead for your group please make sure that the rest of your group receive this information as well.
All events all weekend will convene at the PCUN Union Hall on 300 Young St., Woodburn, OR. Driving directions are included below.
Our weekend will kick off with a farmworker housing tour with Ramon Ramirez of PCUN on Friday afternoon! Please arrive by 2:30PM on Friday, June 12th at the Union Hall at 300 Young Street. The tour will begin at 3PM and return at 5PM. Registration for this event is now full; ROP will be in touch to confirm your seats if you have registered for the tour. Eager to go, but didn’t register? You can contact Grace to be added to the waitlist (Caucus@rop.org).
Friday evening, PCUN has invited us to participate in Viernes Comunitario, dinner and a discussion of Health Care for All Oregon from 6PM-8PM. If you plan to attend and have not already registered, please email caucus@rop.org and let us know how many people will be coming.
Saturday is the main event: the Rural Caucus and Strategy Session! Please plan to arrive at the Caucus site on Saturday between 8-8:30am to sign in, pay your group’s dues, and grab a breakfast snack. Please consider bringing your own water bottle and/or coffee mug. We will start the day with a morning plenary and then move into the first round of strategy sessions. (See agenda, below.)
On Sunday morning, Dara Silverman from Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) will facilitate a strategy session for organizing for racial justice from 9am-12:30pm. If you have not confirmed, please let us know right away if you plan to attend (caucus@rop.org)!
If you requested community housing, you should have heard from us by now with details. If you need community housing and have not already requested it, please confirm with us ASAP! There is limited camping outside of the PCUN Union Hall, and indoors inside the Union Hall. Email Grace (caucus@rop.org) if you need help finding a place to stay, otherwise we will assume you are making your own accommodations.
If you or anyone in your group needs childcare or Spanish-English translation, please contact us right away so we can make sure we can meet your needs.
If you signed up as the lead for your group please make sure that the rest of your group receive this information as well.
If you still need to pay for Caucus registration or pay group dues, you can do so online or bring your check to the registration table at the Caucus.
Driving directions to PCUN Union Hall are below.
Thanks, and see you soon!
Cara, Jess, Grace and the ROP Team
PS: We are still looking to fill some volunteer positions. We could use more photographers, meal helpers, and clean-up crew. Also, if you live nearby and have room to host overnight guests, please let Grace know (caucus@rop.org). Thanks!
ROP’s Annual Rural Caucus & Strategy Session’s Weekend Events
June 12th-14th
PCUN Union Hall at 300 Young St., Woodburn, OR
Friday, June 12th
Farmworker tour with Ramon Ramirez of PCUN (2:30pm-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-8pm): Every other Friday, PCUN members and community gather at PCUN to discuss a topic relevant to the community. This month Lee Mercer, President of Health Care for All Oregon, and Sandra Hernandes, Board Member of HCAO and Director of the Spect-actor Collective, will discuss the coalition for universal, publicly funded health care in Oregon. Format will be bilingual, interactive, moving and fun.
Saturday, June 13th – the main event!
Rural Caucus & Strategy Session (8:30am-5:30pm): ROP’s annual Rural Caucus & Strategy Session will bring together leaders from across Oregon to share stories and skills, build relationships and analysis, and advance plans to strengthen the movement for democracy and justice in rural and small town Oregon. Workshops, strategy sessions, plenaries and plenty of time to share local strategies with one another!
Sunday, June 14th
Organizing for Racial Justice in Rural and Small Town Oregon (9am-12:30pm): We will convene a strategy brunch for folks to discuss local racial justice organizing strategies. What’s going well? What’s hard? Where are you getting stuck? Join other human dignity leaders and Dara Silverman from Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) for a chance to think about and build our racial justice organizing skills together.
RURAL CAUCUS & STRATEGY SESSION
Envisioning Community and Fierce Resistance in the Face of the Right
PCUN Union Hall – 300 Young St. Woodburn, OR
Saturday, June 13th – 8am – 5:30pm
8am: Registration & breakfast bar open
Grab coffee and snacks at the breakfast bar and tour the PCUN Union Hall and CAPACES Leadership Institute
9:00am-9:20am: Welcome from ROP and our host, PCUN
9:20am-9:45am: Keeping Hope Alive: what it takes to build a movement. Keynote by Kathleen Saadat
9:45am-10:40am: Intergenerational Fishbowl Conversation: Building Community and Resilience
Movement elders and youth leaders share their bold organizing across Oregon, dig into what drives them, and offers advice from their mentors that has carried them through.
10:40am-12:15pm: Small Group Strategy Sessions
What do our communities need to be healthy and vibrant for years to come? How do we connect our work across communities to build the movement that creates those changes?
12:15pm-1:30PM: LUNCH and Human Dignity Awards
1:30pm-2:10pm: Rural Organizing Voices: ROP’s Roots & Wings Oral History Project takes flight
We will dive into the organizing stories through ROP’s history, from early 90s culture wars to now, and explore the Rural Organizing Voices resource that will serve to inspire organizers for generations to come.
2:20-4:50pm: STRATEGY SESSION TRACKS:
Capture the Flag: Community and Resilience in the Face of the Right
The mobilization of “patriot” and militia groups to Southern Oregon shines a spotlight on what we many see as a nationally growing militia movement, fueled by an ongoing economic crisis and the predictable anger of working people and veterans. As the national conversation on race continues to grow, we can expect to see a growing backlash, especially in states like Oregon that are named by white supremacists as “the white homeland”. As funding for sheriffs departments and emergency response dwindle, the right is offering concrete alternatives – militias, community preparedness fairs, and more. What is the extreme right’s connection to mainstream politics? How do we take care of each other in a moment where it is revolutionary to do so? How do we build broad community coalitions that work together to keep lines of communication open and temperatures low as infrastructure erodes? How can we organize with an alternative vision of how we want our communities to look like that centers around human dignity and democracy for all?
A People’s Agenda for Rural Oregon
In the morning we will have spent some time talking about the duress our communities experience today and brainstorm a vision of community. In this track we will look at different opportunities that take us closer to that vision:
Worker Dignity
Racial Justice & Immigrant Rights
Climate Justice & the Commons
4:55-5:30pm: Summaries from tracks & Closing
Where did we get in our strategy sessions and how do we move forward in the year to come?
Join us for a little fun: a delicious posole dinner made by our friends and PCUN and good company immediately following the Caucus!
Directions to PCUN
From I-5 North:
Take exit 271 for OR-214 toward Woodburn
Turn right onto OR-214 S (signs for Woodburn/Mt Angel). Go 1 mile.
Turn right onto N Settlemier Ave. (0.3 miles.)
Turn left onto Garfield St. After going through a business district and crossing train tracks, Garfield Street turns into Young. (0.3 miles.)
Continue on Young St. to 300 Young St Woodburn, OR 97071 (0.1 mile.)
PCUN will be on your right. There is a large sign.
From I-5 South:
Take exit 271 for Route 219 toward Woodburn/Silverton
Turn left onto OR-219 S/Hwy 219 S
Continue onto OR-214 S (signs for Woodburn/Mt Angel). Go 1 mile.
Turn right onto N Settlemier Ave. Drive 0.3 miles.
Turn left onto Garfield St. After going through a business district and crossing train tracks, Garfield Street turns into Young. (0.3 miles.)
Continue on Young St. to 300 Young St Woodburn, OR 97071 (0.1 mile.)
PCUN will be on your right. There is a large sign.