InterdepenDance CivicJam LA Planning Workshop! Planning our path to November, with creative energy, singing, dancing and more!
We’re inviting LA-region civic organizers, artists/creators, event producers, entrepreneurs, and concerned citizens from across the political spectrum to come together, connect, and chart out a path for what we want to achieve between now and the November election, with an eye towards strengthening our foundations for long-term creative civic renewal.
The three main goals of this brainstorming / unconference-style workshop are:
Community Connection: Let's meet, connect, and get to know each other! (Through discussion, music, and creative expression.)
Sensemaking: Civics, AI, tech, democracy, and the world these days are fuzzy, both in LA, California, the US, and beyond. Let's work through things together. "Community as compass" to help us all move in the right direction.
Bias towards action: This is a time for action. We want to leave August 9th with some clear next steps, working groups, and collaborative events on the calendar for what we want to organize in the run-up to the November election, with an eye towards building this creative civic movement beyond.
A Civic Jam Planning Workshop, with LA special sauce!
Come for the amazing people and discussions, and stay for the singing and dancing!
We aligned this workshop to happen in the same space right before a beautiful VOMO - Voice Movement workshop with Chris Pan and the Light DAO community! Learn more about VOMO here, and sign up for the VOMO workshop (for free) here!
The Schedule in Brief
Noon-1pm: Potluck lunch, connection time, brainstorming time
1-3pm: Civic Jam discussions and breakouts
3-5:30/6pm: Let's sing and dance with Chris Pan and friends!
6-7pm: Harvest ideas from the creative flow as we wrap-up! Those who want can continue for drinks/etc at a place nearby.
A potluck to nourish the mind, body, soul and community
This Sunday is a potluck gathering, to help us stay nourished and energized throughout the afternoon. If you don't have time to make something, please bring some food/snacks/fruit/drinks to share. You can pick up something right nearby at the Mar Vista Farmer's Market (located just one block from Reunion), open from 9am-2pm each Sunday! There's a potluck signup form here.
There will be some chairs, but some of us may also be sitting on the ground, so feel free to bring a cushion or blanket to sit on as well.
🎟️ Are there tickets? Kinda!
We're running this event on a donation-based sliding scale, and we're also working to build a movement, bringing joy, creativity, and community connections into our civic and democracy space. Beyond the potluck, we invite people to contribute to event costs, and to helping build this creative civic movement in LA and beyond. You can make a contribution here on Luma, or a 501c3 tax deductible donation via GiveButter and our fiscal sponsor, the California Doughnut Economics Coalition (CalDEC.org).
That being said, all are welcomed.
Location - Reunion in Venice (map 📍)
Big thanks to Sarah and the Reunion family for hosting us! They just recently opened, and are already doing great stuff. 💛 If you're looking for an amazing new community-oriented event space in Venice to host an upcoming event, please reach out to them! :-)
Up for offering a ride? Want a ride? Please add your name to the rideshare list here!
And the brainstorming starts now! Share your opinion now on Heard.vote!
We want to hear what's most important to you and others in our community, and see how we can build towards consensus of shared priorities to then see how we can make them happen ... together. Heard.vote is a simple way for people to vote on issues, and add their own, so please hop on over and share your thoughts:
At the event on Aug 9, we'll share the results, break into small groups to discuss in a deeper way, and help you find the issue and the people you might want to collaborate with to take action ... whether through an existing initiative or organization, or bringing people together to start a new one.
Partners
We're excited to work with some lovely community partners on this effort:
Braver Angels LA Chapter
SoCal Civic Alliance
We're also proud to be following the THE BRAVER ANGELS WAY at this event and in our community engagement work:
- We state our views freely and fully, without fear.
- We treat people who disagree with us with honesty, dignity and respect.
- We welcome opportunities to engage those with whom we disagree.
- We believe all of us have blind spots and none of us are not worth talking to.
- We seek to disagree accurately, avoiding exaggeration and stereotypes.
- We look for common ground where it exists and, if possible, find ways to work together.
- We believe that, in disagreements, both sides share and learn.
- In Braver Angels, neither side is teaching the other or giving feedback on how to think or say things differently.
That's all! Please sign up! Below is just additional info if you want to dig deeper!
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Are you affiliated with any political party?
No, this is a truly non-partisan/bi-partisan/trans-partisan event, and if we're aligned with anything, we're aligned with what we call the "big missing middle" of people who don't feel that any party is adequately looking out for the interests of the majority of the people, and that actually, when "we the people" get together, we realize we're not nearly as polarized as the media/social media/politicians and political parties show ... since they actually profit (financially) from making people feel polarized, but we the people don't.
So let's come together as people left, right and center ... and come up with a plan of action for co-creating the city, state and country that we actually want to live in, and that we know is possible.
Does it end on Aug 9? What happens after?
Building the communities, cities, and country we want to live in won't be done in a day, but this is a start, it's a long-term effort, and we think every step of it should be filled with joy, connection, community, and impact. We have three suggested next steps, and we're open for more:
Helping people connect into existing or new initiatives or "working groups" to continue work on specific issues.
Making this gathering a regular convening (monthly? quarterly? a mix of in-person and online?), with specific actions and goals to accomplish between each one.
We're launching a "civics & democracy accelerator", and want to find great initiatives to invite to that! Initiatives could be for-profit/non-profit/civic (unregistered), and high-tech/low-tech, with a near-term focus on initiatives that can have positive impact on the November election.
We're open to other ideas as well.
This is a co-created event! Collaborators and volunteers, please join!
Can you help with food, music, art supplies/activities, kid-care (so parents can join more easily), or games? Have other ideas that would make this an amazing event? Feel free to reach out to Dave (dmn@nextdemocracy.us) and Scott (scott@vineberg.com). If not for this event, then no doubt it will come in handy in future events! Thanks much!
Bring a friend, an open mind, and come join us and find your team on August 9!